Life's Treasures
by ComanderSprings
Summary: Continuation of Limitless Dreams. What happens when Steven loses his rock collection all of sudden? And when things around the region start disappearing... and appearing? Join Emily in a new adventure where the most important isn't the journey, but the ones you share the journey with. Get ready to experience a wide range of emotions.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: A mysterious disappearance**

Every _new friend is a new adventure… the start of more memories_

It was just an ordinary day for Emily, almost an exact copy of the previous day. Ever since she finished her studies at the Ranger School, every day was surprisingly boring, which is something Emily wasn't used to. Of course she liked the peace of being at home, but she preferred being outside doing things, she was anxiously waiting for Aarune's call telling her that she could start her job as a Ranger right away. However, that call seemingly hesitated to arrive. It could be said that it was the most stubborn call ever.

Emily was lying on the couch, wearing her everyday clothes just in case she had to go somewhere. Her parents were out buying groceries and like the previous day, she decided to stay so the house wouldn't be empty. Although there's Alyx in the backyard, Emily refused to leave her alone. After all, would Alyx we able to deal with the mailman? Not really, at least to Emily's knowledge. And either way, what she was watching at the moment was way too interesting for her to want to leave the house. A movie based on the life of a successful Kalosian fashion designer was being shown on TV and for some reason, Emily was fascinated by it.

Sadly when the movie was reaching its climax, the landline phone across the room decided to ring. Emily huffed as she got up from the couch and turned up the volume on the TV so she could still hear what was going on in the movie. With a quick movement, she lifted the headset. "Yes?"

"Emily, is it you?" It was Steven's voice. He was having a day off and maybe he wanted to hang out. The movie wouldn't last much longer, so there would be no problem.

Or that's what Emily thought!

"Yeah, how are you doing?" She asked while walking around the room as much as the phone cord allowed her.

"I'll be honest: not good. I need you to come here immediately!" His tone changed from a completely calm voice to a slightly agitated one. Although small, that change was noticeable enough to startle Emily a bit.

"Can you tell me what happened?" She asked with a concerned frown. Even if Steven couldn't see it from the other side of the phone, she couldn't help but show worry on her face.

"It's something terrible… Please, come quickly!"

"Now you are scaring me, but I will be there as soon as possible. Please, hang on!" And with those words, Emily hung up the phone.

She took a glance at the TV's screen, where the movie still continued. Although she would have loved to see the end of it, right now there was something more important for her to do. As fast as she could, Emily scribbled a note for her parents where she explained that she was out because Steven needed her for something important. After that, she ran to her bedroom and grabbed Hershey's pokéball. The whole process was very fast, in less than half a minute, Emily was already on her way to Steven's house.

While the little flight lasted, she considered different scenarios concerning what Steven's big problem was. Was there a theft on his house? Was he dealing with street vendors insistently ringing his doorbell? Or was there a Snorlax blocking the house's door? Who knew, the possibilities were endless! Aside from being so agitated, nothing else about Steven sounded wrong, although Emily knew that he being agitated was on itself something to worry about. Maybe in the end it was just a little thing, maybe it would be solved by the time she got there… And that would make her kinda upset since that would mean missing the end of the movie about that successful Kalosian fashion designer for nothing!

Fortunately, it didn't take long until Emily and Hershey reached Mossdeep City, where Steven lives. Once they landed, she thanked her pokémon and returned him to his pokéball. After that she opened the door to Steven's house. Yes, Emily has now a copy of his house keys, probably as a symbol of the stability of their relationship. The call just proved that decision to be a good idea.

When Emily opened the door she found Steven sitting on a chair, looking really anguished, he even seemed to have dark circles under his eyes. Despite his stupor, it didn't take him too long to notice Emily's presence. As she closed the door shut, Steven got up and approached her girlfriend almost walking like a zombie.

"What happened?" Emily went straight to the point, placing her hands on Steven's shoulders in an attempt to reassure him.

"Something terrible, that's what happened!" He seemed to be a little bit calmer, but Steven was still not being his usual self.

"Tell me, I will listen!" Emily insisted as she eyed the hall, not noticing anything out of the ordinary.

"You don't need to listen anything, just follow me."

Steven led her to the living room, where Emily still couldn't see anything abnormal… Well, that was until she spotted the big cabinet where all of his rocks were exposed. The collection had disappeared entirely!

"Your rocks…" Emily was utterly astonished, she couldn't think of a coherent thing to say. She knew how much those rocks meant to Steven and they vanished!

"Exactly. And now please, follow me to the bedroom."

The short walk towards the bedroom was done in complete silence. It was evident that Steven was not in the mood for talking and it was understandable, even if to anyone else his reasons to be upset would sound totally stupid. But not to Emily, she understood (and tolerated) his hobby for stones.

When they made it to the bedroom, our protagonist saw by herself that the cabinets next to Steven's bed were completely empty. Those were his favorite rocks!

"Who did this?" Emily asked looking him in the eyes. She would say that he had been crying.

"That's the worst part: I don't know. The locks are entirely intact; it's almost as if somebody took them from inside the cabinet!"

"Maybe this is a stupid question but, do you have any clue of who could have been?" Emily took a closer look at the cabinet. Whoever stole the rocks was a professional. That or a total prodigy!

"I don't, I wish I could know who the thief is so the person gets punished." Steven was staring at the empty cabinet, like if that could bring the rocks back.

"And I wish I could do something helpful, I'm probably as surprised as you are! I really want to help you get your collection back." Again, Emily puts her hand on his shoulder.

"But it's much more than a collection! These rocks, especially the ones that were there in this room are so important!" Steven began walking around the room nervously. "The crystals that I found with my father on Mount Mortar, that rare rock from Mount Pyre… All is lost!"

Steven sat on the edge of the bed, still very agitated. Emily sat next to him, putting her hand on his in an affectionate gesture. "Look, I know that you are upset, but being upset won't solve anything. To get your rocks back, we must start moving! Who knows where they might be by now."

"You're right, although it's uncertain who committed such a bad act, we should do something already. I can't allow that person to get away with their crime!"

"Exactly! That's the spirit. I'm sure you will be able to get them back." Emily encourages him with a smile.

"I hope you're right, those rocks are irreplaceable." Steven sighs and without saying a word, he holds his girlfriend's hand on his. "I'm sorry you had to come here so quickly, I made it look like something worse happened, didn't I?"

"No, it's fine. I didn't have anything to do…" LIAR "…so I don't mind coming here! You know I'm always happy to visit you." Emily kissed her lips to make herself clearer.

"I'm glad to hear that, I was afraid of bothering you!" Steven kisses her back and smiles. "I'm feeling so much better now! I suddenly feel like watching TV. How does it sound?"

"It sounds pretty well! It will help us to relax." Emily commented as they got up from the bed.

"Yeah, it will take my mind off of it for a while." Steven answered as they exited the room.

On the living room, Steven's big plasma TV was already displaying something. A news story about the effects of natural medicine on pokémon was being shown, a middle aged woman was giving her opinion.

"Sincerely, I think that if we all gave our pokémon more natural products, their lifespan would be dramatically increased and other things such as their performance in battles would skyrocket!"

After a few words from the reporter, the camera cut back to the studio where the news anchor was playing some random game on her phone as if her pay depended on it. As soon as she realized she was back on air, the host hid her phone and cleared her throat. "Those were some good points." She noted with an unsettlingly wide grin. "It's time to discuss something very curious; I'm talking about the sudden appearance of several islands around the Hoenn region. The first reports claim that the environment is surprisingly different from one island to another."

"How is that possible?" Emily wondered out loud as the TV displayed footage of said islands.

"But that's not all, things are not only appearing! They are disappearing too. Several workers of Mossdeep City's Spatial Center reported yesterday the disappearance of a bunch of missiles. In the same vein, the emblematic Prism Tower of Mauville City is unexplainably gone. No one can explain what everything is about; the region never saw anything like this!" A dumb sound effect, probably with the intention of making the story sound less worrying, played as the host finished her speech.

All that sounded so familiar to the pair… "Do you think the same as I do?" Emily soon spoke.

"Yes, the same individual must be behind all those incidents! The Prism Tower, my rocks…" Steven pondered a bit, with his hand resting on his chin. His thinking didn't last long. "We should go to the Spatial Center; it could be very helpful!"

"Yeah, maybe knowing about a similar case will help both them and us." Emily agreed as she got up from the couch, Steven immediately following after her.

Emily's ordinary day suddenly wasn't ordinary at all. Would they get anything useful out of that visit to the Spatial Center? They sure hoped so, especially Steven. Either way, they didn't know that they would find their answer on the most unexpected place…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Talk of the town**

As soon as they left the house, Steven closed the door with an annoyed expression. It was evident that he really didn't feel at ease leaving his house unattended, especially after what happened. He walked towards Emily, who waited for him a few steps ahead, and offered his arm for her to hold it. Then they marched towards the Space Center, where they _really_ hoped to find some answers.

"I hope everything is on its place when we come back!" Steven frowned slightly, looking back at his house.

"I don't think you will lose anything else, it looked like the thief was only interested on the rocks." Emily tried to comfort her boyfriend, which given the situation was pretty difficult.

"But it doesn't explain the other thefts," said Steven. "What criteria does that dirty thief follow?"

"No idea, it's just so random… Towers, rocks and missiles. And what's up with those islands?" The islands. Emily suddenly remembered them. That was, without a doubt, the most unsettling part of it all. How can anyone be capable of such thing?

"It's a big mystery, but why would the thief want to take things and then make islands appear out of nowhere?" Steven was still extremely puzzled, even more so when an important and obvious question popped up on his mind. "And more importantly, _how do they do that_?"

"I know, it's so curious! I want to know who's behind all of this and of course, getting your rocks back is a must."

"Y-yes, I won't stop until I have them back." Steven looked at Emily trying to forcé a determined glare, then he looked forward. The figure of the Space Center was slowly getting closer. They still had a bit of a long way to go, but they were so busy thinking about what caused their visit that the distance that separated them from the building was the last thing on their minds.

Predictably, Emily and Steven weren't the only ones occupied with those strange appropriations. It was the talk of the town, several groups of people here and there discussed the incidents, especially the stealing of the missiles of the Space Center.

"The worst part is not knowing who has them." An elderly man lamented about the missing projectiles.

"You're right my friend, who knows what the person who took them wants!" A woman around the same age added as she fanned herself with a polka dotted fan.

"They might want to blow up the moon!" A young man butted in, a sign that read " _The end of the world is coming!_ " hung from his neck. The people around him scoffed, dismissing his crazy theory.

As they overheard those crazy comments, Emily told her boyfriend that one of the things that concerned her the most –besides the missiles– was the disappearance of the Prism Tower, since it's needed to monitor Mauville City. "What if the thief is more than just a thief?" She asked with a hint of angst, undoubtedly thinking that they might be of the caliber of both Team Aqua and Magma.

"To be honest, that's sort of worrying. But I'm sure that if we catch that person on time, there won't be a problem," Steven answered reassuringly, putting an arm around his girlfriend's shoulder. The pair walked like that until they finally reached their destination.

The Space Center was hands down, the most remarkable building of the whole city. One of the things that make Mossdeep an important location within Hoenn is precisely that Space Center, from where they launch huge rockets into space, the stable weather conditions of the area are of great help on that matter. Not only that, it also houses a small theatre like room from which the Litleonid Meteor Shower can be seen in all its splendour. Emily came here to see the last one with her parents and she has some great memories from it. But sadly, that wasn't really important at the moment.

Shortly after Emily and Steven entered the building, a worker approached them with a kind smile. "Hey Steven, what a surprise!"

Emily wasn't surprised upon seeing how that worker knew Steven. Being the Champion meant that lots of people would recognize him, especially in his hometown. "Hi Matthew, it's nice to see you!" Her boyfriend greeted back.

"I see you wanted to take your girl somewhere nice, didn't you?" Matthew had a crooked smile as he looked at the couple. The comment made them laugh.

"No, we're actually here for another reason," Steven started explaining. "We heard on the news that several missiles disappeared here in the Space Center."

"That's right," Matthew abandoned his cheery expression. "That has been driving everyone crazy around there."

"Something in the same vein happened to me… All of my rocks are gone and I'm so frustrated! The thief left no clues."

"Whoever that bandit is, they must know very well what they are doing…" Matthew closed his eyes for a second and hummed before continuing, nodding slightly. "They are a master at what they do."

"That's obvious," Steven huffed. "The question is, is there something that can be done?"

"Unfortunately I can't think of anything but…" Matthew looked around making sure nobody heard him, continued in a lower tone "...if you guys want to, I can take you to the place where the missiles used to be stored."

Steven pondered for a moment, not really thinking that going to an empty room would be useful. After a few seconds, he finally decided. "Sure, why not?"

"I like the idea too, I wouldn't mind checking it out." Emily maintained the confidential tone that Matthew had set, making sure no one would hear her.

"Then, follow me!" Matthew said as he got a set of keys out of his pocket. The trio walked towards an elevator located in the corner of the room. "Only authorized staff can use the elevator." Matthew explained as he introduced the key on a keyhole next to the elevator's door. "Okay, now we can use it!" With that, the group finally entered the elevator.

Apparently it only led to one floor, there were no buttons inside the cabin. But an arrow pointing downwards indicated the group where their destination was. _"This is so odd."_ Emily thought right before the elevator's doors finally opened.

"Not a lot of people know about this basement." Matthew explained as he, Emily and Steven started walking through a very wide and long aisle.

"It's understandable, with missiles and other stuff like that not anyone can come here." Emily added distractedly, taking a quick glance at a sign placed next to a door. She couldn't get to read what it said.

"Exactly, that way we try to avoid losing stuff… But it looks like that doesn't work anymore." Matthew sighed.

Although their voices and steps echoed through the whole place, nothing else could be heard. There were lots of doors, but no sounds came from them. The floors, made of steel, resonated loudly with every step the small group took. The overall ambiance was pretty sterile and to add to it, the aisle smelt as if someone had been cleaning there recently. To Emily, that place was a little intimidating. It felt as if the walls would collapse onto them at any given moment.

After some seconds of silence, Steven spoke. "Well, it looks like that individual might have some…interesting methods."

"Indeed, I'm starting to think that whoever did all these things is not human!" Matthew's voice boomed through the aisle, he pronounced the last three words in a higher tone than the others.

"Do you think it's possible that a pokémon with such powers exists?" Emily asked, trying to figure out if she should be surprised or not.

"Of course, anything is possible!" Matthew solved her dilemma without realizing. Shortly after that, he stopped in front of an enormous steel door. "Okay, we're already here."

After their guide opened the big portal with a magnetic card, Emily and Steven followed him into the room. Even from outside, it was more than obvious that it was completely empty. Only the shelves where those projectiles sat remained.

"How big were those missiles?" Steven stared in awe.

"Not that big, but it doesn't make them any less dangerous."

"How destructive can they be?" Emily asked as she interlocked her own fingers, waiting for the bad news.

"Enough to destroy an entire city." Matthew had a very stern expression. Yes, those were some bad news.

"Then it's important to get them back!" Steven exclaimed with concern.

"Oh I'm sure we will retrieve them sooner or later," Matthew forced a smile. "We are already working on trying to recover them!"

"Great! I don't think there will be any problem then." Emily tried to stay positive.

"Hopefully! We are working really hard. By the way," Matthew changed the subject. "I think we should exit this room. Somebody might come."

Steven nodded. "You're right, I don't think they would be happy seeing us there." Just like that, the trio left the room. Matthew made sure to close the door before they all resumed their march through the intimidating corridor.

"So, is there any clue about the identity of that dirty rascal?" Going by his expression, Steven was definitely waiting for a helpful answer.

"No, unfortunately not." Geez. "We probably won't know who it was until the missiles are located"

"I understand…" Steven answered with a disappointed sigh, looking at the floor for a few seconds.

The group walked in silence through the corridor. After a few moments of walking, they found the elevator again. Eerie silence inhabited the building, causing the three to feel unsettled. To feel a little less disturbed, Matthew broke the silence.

"Did you hear about the Prism Tower and those islands?"

"Yeah, we saw everything earlier on the news." Emily answered before Steven could. "That's why we came here."

"That's right. It looks like this thief had a blast…" Steven sighed once again. "It's not only about my rocks, all the other things must go back to their places too!"

Matthew nodded energetically "Yes, that's how it is! Whoever is behind this must return what they took."

A little after Matthew finished his sentence, the group reached the elevator. Again, he unlocked the machine with the set of keys he had in his pocket. After a few seconds, they all were back to the ground floor of the Space Center. Nobody noticed their little "trip" to the basement, which made Matthew sigh in relief. He then turned to face Emily and Steven, who exchanged glances as if to say "Welp, we didn't get anything out of this."

"I hope you guys can find a solution." Matthew sighed, infected by their disappointment.

"Don't worry, we will make sure to do so." Emily smiled, trying again to make herself and everyone else feel a bit less disenchanted.

"Either way," Steven added. "Thank you for letting us talk to you."

"Oh, it's my pleasure! I wish I could have been more helpful." Matthew responded humbly.

"You did help us! Now we know we aren't the only ones who feel lost."

Of course, Emily decided to add her two cents. "I agree with Steven. And plus, when the missiles are located, we will probably know who the thief is!"

"Alright, then I'm glad!" Matthew now had a relaxed smile on his face. "So, do you guys need something else?"

"No, thank you. We actually have to leave now." Steven explained. "Besides that, we don't wish to distract you from your job."

Matthew laughed heartily at the comment. "You guys didn't distract me! I was taking a break. Be careful you two and also, I hope you find your rocks Steven!"

"We will, and I hope I do!" The aforementioned and his girlfriend waved goodbye as they exited the building.

There they were, with the exact same information they had before going in. All they knew is that people was working on locating those missiles and therefore, the burglar who got them. Steven sighed as he and his girlfriend started walking down the street. "Well… At least we got it off our chests."

"Yes, I guess that's something. But don't worry, we will find a solution sooner or later." As soon as Emily was done speaking, her stomach growled like an angry Mightyena.

"You know, there's a really nice cafeteria not too far from here." Steven couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm also a bit hungry myself."

"Oh, that sounds great! Let's go then." Emily held her boyfriend's hand, now they were heading to the opposite direction, passing the Space Center.

After not even ten minutes, the couple was already there. A few tables and chairs were placed just outside of the cafeteria, but they chose to go inside. The place was mildly crowded, almost everyone sat on the tables, eating various things and talking to each other. At the back of the room, there was a long, white bar with a glass display through which several pastries could be seen. Only a person was sitting there, a young man with a backpack. Emily sat next to him while Steven sat next to her.

"I never thought that investigating this kind of incidents would make me hungry, specially when the disappearance of my rock collection is involved." The young man sighed as he drummed his fingers against the bar, waiting for the attendant to come.

"I didn't expect to get hungry either, I had breakfast not long ago." For some reason, that made Emily remember the movie she was watching before all that started. Who knows how long it would be until they put it on TV again!

Although she couldn't complain, because what she was experiencing seemed to be straight out of a movie.

"I'm your barman, do you guys have any orders?" And suddenly, the waiter appeared. Emily and Steven got so absorbed in their own thoughts that they got a bit startled.

"Hold up!" The man with the backpack spoke. "Their orders will be on me."

"Alright. Now, what would you all like to have?"

"A lettuce sandwich with mayonnaise." Emily was reading directly from the blackboard behind the bar, it was simply the first thing she saw.

"I'll have the same." Steven said calmly. Maybe he was hungry, but he didn't really want to bother himself having to think about what to order.

"A soda for me, please." The mysterious man petitioned. He turned to Emily and Steven at smiled at them. Now the couple was even more confused and maybe even slightly unsettled.

"Okay, everything will be ready in less than ten minutes." The attendant was about to leave, but something caught his attention. He stopped in front of a radio and turned up the volume.

One of those music programs was playing. A rather cheery male voice was introducing a song. "Time to enjoy this summer's hit, i _Youngster Joey_ /i!" After a few seconds, the song began playing.

 _If it hadn't been for Youngster Joey_

 _I'd been Champion a long time ago_

 _Where did you come from, where did you go?_

 _Where did you come from, Youngster Joey?_

The waiter left whistling the song's tune, which was pretty catchy, leaving Emily and Steven alone with the strange individual who offered himself to pay their orders. They were starting to think that maybe he was the one behind those robberies, he probably hid Steven's rocks on that big backpack of his. _"However,"_ Emily thought. _"What about the missiles, the islands and the Prism Tower?"_ She knew it was impossible that the man was behind all that, although maybe he did steal the rocks. Who knows?

"So…" Surprise! The guy started speaking, addressing Steven. "Not even five minutes ago you said you lost your rock collection with no explanation, right?"

"Right."

"I knew I didn't misheard that. Today is your lucky day!"

Upon hearing that, Emily thought to herself _"See? This is the guy who stole the rocks. Called it!"_ Little did she know that she was actually wrong. The young man, whose identity was still unknown, kept conversing with Steven.

"I happen to know who's behind the loss of your rocks, as well as some other incidents you probably heard of already." He cleared his throat. "The author of these disappearances is none other than a pokémon called Hoopa!"

"A pokémon?" Emily and Steven exclaimed in unison as the waiter came to deliver their orders. That was quick! Meanwhile, that song from the radio kept going. It picked a very fast and cheery rhythm.

 _If it hadn't been for Youngster Joey_

 _I'd been Champion a long time ago_

 _Where did you come from, where did you go?_

 _Where did you come from, Youngster Joey?_

"Exactly, a pokémon! Would you guys like to know more about it?" The couple nodded eagerly in response before taking a bite from their respective sandwiches, almost as if they ate popcorn while watching a movie. "As I said before, we are in front of a pokémon called Hoopa. This creature not only is very rare, but also very powerful and intelligent. That's why it always gets away with whatever it does."

"No sir, I swear to Arceus that this time it won't get away with its exploits!" Steven exclaimed with indignation, mayonnaise escaping from his sandwich as he unconsciously clenched it.

Giles gasped at Steven's reaction. "Calm down buddy! Shall I keep talking about Hoopa or…?

"Please do," Emily said. "We need to know what we are dealing with in case we ever find that pokémon." Then she gave Steven a reassuring look.

"Okay then. There's actually a lot to say about this pokémon. For example, it can move objects at its will thanks to the three rings it adorns itself with. But wait!" The backpack guy adjusted his glasses. "Not only it can teleport objects; it can also warp other pokémon, people and even entire islands!"

"Huh, I guess that explains everything." Steven didn't seem to be impressed.

"It does! The rings can be as big as entire islands which, of course, explains the sudden appearance of those new islands."

Emily was almost entranced by the man's explanations. She had heard of many pokémon with amazing abilities, but none as outlandish as those. Of course, she felt like asking the million dollar question. "So… Is Hoopa real?"

The backpack guy laughed. "As real as you and I! Only that its sightings are rare. By the way, with all this talk I nearly forgot to introduce myself. My name is Giles Fournier and I'm from the Kalos region."

His dialoguists introduced themselves as well. "My name is Steven, nice to meet you!"

"I'm Emily, nice to meet you!"

Giles smiled and nodded. "I only came here this morning. As soon as I heard in the radio about those incidents, I took a flight; it was too interesting to pass it up. Now," Giles adjusted his glasses with a quick movement. "I have a bit of an indecent proposition for you guys. I'm going back to Kalos four days from now and, since Steven has lost something to Hoopa, you guys could come with me and we can try to locate it."

The small group remained silent for a moment. Only the radio could be heard.

 _If it hadn't been for Youngster Joey_

 _I'd been Champion a long time ago_

 _Where did you come from, where did you go?_

 _Where did you come from, Youngster Joey?_

Luckily for Giles, it didn't take all that long until the couple decided. Steven was the first one to speak. "I _love_ the idea! We will get my rocks back _and_ we will visit Kalos!"

Emily's answer came immediately after Steven's. "Whew, I didn't expected this to happen but of course, I want to come!"

Just like that, both Emily and Steven saw themselves caught up in a surprise trip to Kalos. But they couldn't do anything about it, since circumstances made it that way. And if they could, they didn't want to avoid it anyway. They didn't know yet, but much more than a rock collection –and several other stuff– was a stake.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Souvenirs and baguettes**

Emily nearly forgot how exciting getting ready for a long journey was, especially now that it involved going to a whole different region. In only three days she, Steven and their new friend were leaving for the Kalos region where they would luckily find Hoopa and make it return everything it stole back to its rightful place. If they didn't succeed… well, at least they would be able to brag about having been to Kalos. Who doesn't dream of visiting the region?

* * *

When the previous day Emily told her parents that she and Steven were leaving for Kalos in less than four days with a person they just met, they couldn't help but question her decision. "Kalos? Why?" Her father asked with his eyes wide open, putting down all of sudden the newspaper he was reading.

"Remember that note I left earlier saying that Steven needed me for something important?" Emily, who was sitting across her parents, gulped in one sitting half a mug of coffee. That was unusual for her since she is not too fond of it. "It turns out all of his rocks disappeared!"

"What a disaster!" Her mother covered her face in an almost too dramatic gesture. "But… What does that have to do with Kalos?"

"The man we have met at the bar said that the reason for the disappearance of Steven's rocks is a pokémon called Hoopa. Apparently, it's native to the Kalos region, so we should find it there."

"So a pokémon that can take away things just like that, huh? I would have never thought about it. Oh!" Emily's father left out a startling exclamation as he spotted something on the newspaper out of the corner of his eye. "Look what it says there! _Mauville City's emblematic Prism Tower disappears without further explanation_. Is that Hoopla behind that too?"

"Hoopa." Emily corrects with an amused smile, only to get serious before continuing to speak. "Yes, it stole the tower along with some missiles on the Mossdeep Space Center. It also made appear several small islands around the region."

Emily's mother, who was sitting next to her husband, leaned in to take a look to the tabloid. She squinted and then opened her eyes wide. "But how can it do that?"

"Giles said that it's because of some rings that the pokémon carries. Besides, if he is telling the truth, Hoopa is a very powerful pokémon. We could almost say it can do whatever it wants!" Emily leaned in as she spoke, almost with enthusiasm.

"Gee, it almost looks like you are excited by all this!" Emily's father exclaimed jokingly.

His daughter laughed, slightly throwing her head back. "I'm just amazed that a pokémon like this exists, that's all! Besides, who wouldn't be excited about going to Kalos?"

* * *

Going back to the day after, Emily was still too dumbfounded to start packing up her stuff. Steven, on the other hand, began as soon as he and his girlfriend got home. She even stayed around a couple of hours to help him. It caught her attention how, among other things, Steven loaded onto his enormous black suitcase his geology tools. Not only he wanted to retrieve his rocks, he was also raring to get new ones! Typical Steven.

All Emily had to store her belongings (besides her trusty black bag) was a red, medium-sized trolley that had been stored under her bed for more than she could remember. In fact, the first thing she had to do was cleaning it thoroughly because of all the dust it had accumulated over the years. Then she (finally) proceeded to fill it to the brim with stuff: various clothes, personal hygiene items, several Great Balls that she suddenly thought of buying at the local Poké Mart and so on. Her mother also went out a little before Emily did, saying that she had to buy something for her. However, she refused to say what it was.

However, her mother came back not long after Emily started organizing her suitcase. She entered her daughter's room without knocking, carrying a bag belonging to a somewhat expensive clothing store from Petalburg City. The woman had a grin planted on her face. "Since you're going to Kalos, I thought it would be nice to buy something cute for you to wear there!"

"Oh mom, you shouldn't have! What if you need to buy something more important later?" Emily asked as she quickly walked towards her mother, giving a wide eyed stare at the paper bag she held.

The older woman rolled her eyes and looked at the ceiling for a split second, faking disbelief. "Isn't this important? You are going to Kalos! Come on, check it out!" She handed the bag over to her daughter with an energetic gesture, almost hitting her face on accident.

"Okay, if you insist…" Emily mumbled jokingly, taking the bag and walking towards the same spot she was in moments ago, right in front of that not-anymore-dusty red trolley.

The girl's jaw dropped when she saw what the bag contained: It was a light blue and black romper with white polka dots lining the bottom of the pants. Emily had wanted that romper for a long time and, although she could have easily bought it thanks to the money she earned from her days as a trainer trainer, she was always too busy and kept forgetting about it. But now it was finally hers! Emily walked over to her mother and gave her a hug.

"Thanks a lot, it's adorable!"

"I'm glad you like it! When you are going to a place like Kalos, you have to look your best."

It turns out she was more than right. Emily, Giles, and Steven would spend their first four days in the region in Lumiose City's famous Hotel Richissime. Giles didn't really look like the kind of person who could afford to stay at said hotel for several days, but then again, looks are deceiving.

"That's true," Emily said. "Even if I'm not exactly going there to go sightseeing, I'm sure we'll still have lots of fun!"

"But you guys will also need some time to relax, won't you?"

For better or for worse, Emily knew that her journey through Kalos would be anything but relaxing. She sighed while putting a stack of folded clothes inside her trolley. "Yes we will, but I don't think the circumstances will allow us to let our guard down often."

"Isn't it supposed to be a rare and elusive pokémon?" Emily's mother leaned against the doorframe.

"But it's also a very unpredictable one, we'll have to stay alert at all times in case we happen to spot it or something."

"Uh huh." The older woman nodded slowly, watching how her daughter kept organizing her stuff. "But you know, I don't think it will always be about work. You guys will have to disconnect a bit from all that hassle you got yourse-"

"Mom…" Emily interrupts her. "Are you trying to say something else?"

The mother suddenly stiffened, her eyes open wide. She looked just like if someone just caught her making mischief. "Well… I just wanted to ask you to take pictures and bring souvenirs, that's all."

"You shouldn't have beaten around the bush so much for that!" Emily chuckled. "I'll make sure to take plenty of pictures and buy lots of souvenirs."

"Nice! I just think that since you are visiting another region, might as well enjoy it. Don't you think?"

"You're right, even if the circumstances that make me go there aren't the best. We can always bring good out of bad."

"That's the spirit!" Emily's mother made an encouraging gesture with her fist. "Alright, now I'll let you finish putting stuff in the suitcase. You can call either me or dad if you need something."

"Thanks, but I don't think packing will take much longer."

After hearing Emily, her mother nodded and left the room, closing the door slowly. Emily kept putting her belongings into the red suitcase, placing them very neatly. If nobody else came into her bedroom, she would be done in less than a quarter of an hour. Unfortunately for her, her distractions didn't only come from outside her room. In a moment in which she was completely absorbed in her task, her mobile phone suddenly decided to ring. Emily walked over to her desk, discovering that the person calling her was none other than Josh.

"Hey, how are you doing?" She said cheerily.

"I'm doing great, thanks for asking." Josh yawned at the other side. "Sorry for sounding so tired, we woke up early today because my sister is participating in a contest."

"No matter. I wish I could go and see you guys, but I'm busy with something else."

Emily's friend chuckled. "I already know! I heard you're going to Kalos. How come you didn't tell me?"

This surprised our protagonist greatly. How did he know?! "Who told you?" Emily voiced her exact thoughts, feeling rather curious.

"My dad saw yours yesterday at the supermarket and he told him about it, that's why I know." Josh yawned once again. "Although it's like, a personal matter right?"

"It's much more, Steven's rocks disappeared but not only that: the Prism Tower and a bunch of missiles from Mossdeep's Space Center did too."

"Whew!" For some reason, the sound came out so loud that Emily had to separate the phone from her ear. "That sounds really, really strange! But hey, at least you're going to Kalos."

"Yeah, that's what everybody tells me lately." Emily laughed, taking a furtive glance at the suitcase. But it wasn't like the thing would pack itself as she spoke or something.

"Look, some day we should go to another region, the two of us. Wouldn't it be fun?" Josh sounded enthused by the idea. "It would help us become better trainers!"

"But Josh, I'm not a trainer trainer anymore."

"Nonsense, Rangers are trainers too! Just because you aren't collecting badges it doesn't mean you aren't a trainer." In the middle of his speech, a feminine voice could be heard in the background. "Emily, mom says we are leaving now. Have fun in Kalos and bring me something!"

Emily made an amused face. "Something, like what?"

"Uuh… I don't know. Bring me a baguette, maybe? Although you could also bring me one of those replicas of the Lumiose Tower... If you go there, that is."

"Of course I'm going there! That's actually our first stop."

"See how lucky you are?" Again, the boy was thrilled. "Okay, now I have to leave for real. Good luck out there and don't hesitate to call!"

"Alright! I hope it goes well for your sister in the contest too."

"Thank you and… Bye!" After that, Josh hung up.

It was obvious that going on a journey was something to be excited about and of course, it affected the people around her. Emily knew that, if it was up to them, they would join the expedition. Sadly, as she constantly reminded herself, that one wasn't a pleasure trip. Although that didn't mean that it wouldn't be enjoyable. She was going to a region she had never been to and her boyfriend would be with her, what else could she ask for? With a feeling of eagerness for discovering what the elegant region had in store, Emily kept organizing her suitcase. Finding out if Hoopa would listen to them was only a matter of time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Lumiose landing**

After three and a half days of arrangements and constant calls to check if everybody was ready, the trio had finally made it into the plane that would take them to Kalos. Needless to say, both Emily and Steven were stoked, although for different reasons. It was Emily's first time both riding a plane and traveling to a region other than Hoenn. In Steven's case, he couldn't wait to get to Kalos and get his precious stone collection back. As for Giles, he's already from Kalos so going there wasn't all that exciting and overwhelming for him. Despite that, going back to his home region was always fun.

The pilot had announced recently that they would be taking off in about five minutes and that was noticeable in the air. People were getting increasingly talkative, maybe in an attempt to calm down their nerves. No matter what they say, everybody feels a bit nervous when it comes to traveling by plane. It's an universally acknowledged truth. That applied especially in Emily's case, she had never traveled by plane, but she imagined that it wouldn't be too different from riding the back of a flying pokémon. For Giles and Steven, being on a plane was old news.

"Remember guys," Giles started speaking out of the blue, he had been getting distracted with the safety instructions video for a while. "Today we won't be doing much since we'll probably be tired from the plane trip, but tomorrow we will start getting around Lumiose City. Just don't forget that it's i _huge_ /i!"

"At least you can guide us around. We won't have to worry about getting lost!" Emily answered while visualizing on her mind all the pictures she had seen of Lumiose City during her life.

"Of course! That's why it's always good to count with somebody who knows well the place you're going to. Wouldn't you do the same for someone who visited Hoenn for the first time?"

"Sure thing! I would do it without thinking twice." When Emily was done speaking, she grabbed a magazine from a compartment at the back of the seat in front of her. She definitely needed to find a way to entertain herself besides talking to her companions. It was going to be a long flight!

The flight was about to begin. The sound of the aircraft's engine starting could be heard across the plane right before the captain started speaking. "Good morning and thanks for choosing Air Kalos as your airline. This is your captain speaking and I would like to welcome you onboard this flight to Kalos. Flight duration is around two and a half hours and we are expecting a fairly smooth flight today. Once again, we thank you for choosing to fly with us today and we sincerely hope you enjoy your flight!"

As the captain finished his speech, a screen unfolded in front of every single seat. It read "Airplane safety instructions". A belt shaped light started blinking, signaling the passengers to fasten their seatbelts. Our protagonists quickly got to it, having no trouble buckling their respective belts.

"I hope none of you guys will suffer from travel sickness because I forgot to bring paper bags with me!" Giles exclaimed all of sudden, making some of the voyagers laugh.

"I don't believe I will need any of that." Steven maintained a low tone, although with a slightly amused expression.

"Me neither," Emily added, grabbing the same magazine again after she fastened her seatbelt. "Even I feel Beautifly in my stomach."

Almost at the same time, the sound of the jet's engine got louder as it finally took off. It all happened too fast and before our protagonists could realize, they were already leaving the airport behind. Emily placed the magazine down once again –poor magazine– to watch the view from the window. Everything seemed to shrink smaller and smaller as the aircraft gradually ascended. Eventually the view below had a similar appearance to a live map.

Endeared by his girlfriend's attitude, Steven couldn't help but make a moment. "Enjoying the views, I see!"

"Of course I am! It's like flying with your pokémon...but inside a plane! I can't explain it, this is so new to me."

"If you are this amazed with the plane ride, wait until we are in Kalos. That place is absolutely amazing and I really mean it!" After his burst of Kalosian pride, Giles made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "But it's not like I am biased because it's my home region or anything."

Steven casually put his arm around Emily, which prompted her to scoot closer to him and stop looking through the window for a bit. Then the young man spoke, addressing Giles. "So, you have told us before that you love traveling around the world."

"Correct!"

"Which other regions have you been to aside from Hoenn and Kalos?"

"Let's see, I spend quite a lot of time in Sinnoh; it's my second favorite region! I love its lore and all those important landmarks. I have also traveled to Kanto and Unova. Ah, and not only that, two months ago I went to Al–" A young child started crying all of sudden, which startled Giles a bit. "As I was saying, I traveled to A…"

" _Nachos!_ We have nachos today! Who wants some nachos? Straight from the microwave!" A stewardess walked through the aisle pushing a cart full of plastic recipients.

Giles took a deep breath. "Okay, let's try again! Not too long ago, I went to Alo…"

" _Waaaaaaah!_ " A scream came from a seat located a couple of rows behind the trio. "You didn't tell me that the damn nachos had spicy sauce!"

"Why should I? It must be a surprise!" The spicy hostess replied in a sly tone.

" _I'm done!_ " Giles boomed while looking rather upset. "I went to Alola! Why is everyone interrupting me all the time? What is this, a music awards ceremony?"

"Giles, chill…" Emily mumbled as the whole plane turned to look at Giles.

Steven decided to downplay what just happened. "You know, I have a house on Sinnoh! What's your favorite place of the region?"

"Mount Coronet, of course!" Suddenly, Giles wasn't irritated anymore. "It's the source of many of the legends around Sinnoh; it's said that pokémon such as Dialga or Palkia can appear there! Sadly, I never got the chance to see them, but I guess it's true."

Emily really wanted to talk about how she got to see and capture both Kyogre and Latias, but she didn't want to sound like a bragging idiot, so she just limited herself to nod and smile. However, after a little while, she decided to make a question. "Giles, did you ever come across a legendary pokémon?"

The man suddenly became serious. "I'm not gonna lie, I have come across the infamous Hoopa a few times in the past."

"Really?!" Emily and Steven asked at the same time, eyes wide open.

"Yes, really, but it's a...very long story." Giles adjusted his glasses with a serious demeanor.

"Do you think it could be the same one we are going after?" Steven leaned towards Giles a little bit, making him uncomfortable.

"Who knows, it's a possibility…"

"By the way Emily," Steven casually turned his attention to his girlfriend, allowing Giles to relax a bit. "Your parents told me that you seemed really excited about Hoopa."

"Me?" The girl laughed. "Honestly, what excites me the most is the fact that we are going to Kalos because of it. I want it to return your rocks, or else!"

"Wow."

A few minutes in which the trio didn't speak at all went by. Emily was distracted looking through the window yet again, Steven was browsing his phone –which he made sure to put on Airplane Mode–, and Giles read through a magazine. However, it didn't take long until he decided to put it down and resume their conversation about legendary pokémon.

"You know guys, I got to see another legendary pokémon in Kalos and that was Diancie."

" _Diancie?_ " Steven exclaimed loudly all of sudden, making the heads of the passengers turn. "Sorry! I meant...Diancie?"

"Yes, Diancie! But it was a bit shy and I didn't get to interact with it too much. Although it accepted a bit of food I offered to it. That pokémon is really pretty seen in the flesh… Or should I say in the rock?" Steven laughed heartily at Giles's joke. Emily joined them too, although she didn't find it all too funny.

"Say, did you get to pick up a pink diamond?"

Giles attended to Steven's enthusiasm with no problem since he seemed to share it too. "Unfortunately not. Diancie only gifts with pink diamonds those it trusts and the one I encountered happened to be shy as I said before. So no, no diamonds for me!"

Steven wasn't done asking questions. The more Giles talked about Diancie, the more the Champion's eyes sparkled. "And is it true that it's always surrounded by a group of Carbink?"

"Yes, and I learned that the hard way! After spending a little while observing the Diancie from a distance, the Carbink realized I was there and began attacking me, I had to run away faster than lightning!"

"I see, they probably didn't take kindly having an intruder observing their princess." The way Steven referred to Diancie almost made Emily feel jealous but, as soon as she realized she was being jealous of a pokémon, she sighed and rolled her eyes. Meanwhile, her boyfriend kept talking to Giles. "If I were to see a horde of Carbink, would that mean that a Diancie is nearby?"

"Not necessarily, sorry to disappoint you!" Giles chuckled. "There could be a group of Carbink guarding a Diancie, or there could be a group of Carbink which has just gathered because they are a family or for nothing in particular, really. Of course, they can be found on their own too!"

"That's so fascinating, I'm looking forward to catching one if such occasion arises!"

Giles stretched without caring about the annoyed looks he was getting from some of the travelers. "Why not? We could go to Reflection Cave, that's where Carbink is mostly found! Although that won't happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, just telling you."

"I'm curious, what are we going to do tomorrow?" Emily asked finally stepping into the conversation.

"Aside from seeing a bit of Lumiose, we will be heading to Parfum Palace! It's one of the most famous places in Kalos, built by the king 300 years ago. There's a very important reason as to why we must go there." Once again, Giles adjusted his glasses.

Seeing how he didn't seem to have any intention to speak further, Emily encouraged him to continue. "Yes?"

"In one of the rooms of the palace, there's a book which talks about some of the myths and legends of the Kalos region. One of the chapters is about Hoopa, so I think it's very important to take a look at it."

"But, aren't you supposed to know a lot about Hoopa?"

"Emily, I might have gotten to see Hoopa in the flesh, but that doesn't mean I know everything about it. Reading that chapter will be important for all of us."

"He's right." Steven agreed. "When it comes to a pokémon of these characteristics, there's never enough information."

"Maybe with a bit of luck we will catch it on a good day and it will return everything." Emily commented.

"That could be a possibility indeed, but for that, we must work together."

Giles had a rather serious expression again. "It's not about catching it on a good day or not. It's about if Hoopa wants to give us these things or not. Once something becomes part of its collection, it's almost impossible for it to give it back."

"What's the purpose of this journey then?" Emily tried to joke, but the distressed look Steven gave the young woman allowed her to know that her comment wasn't well received. "Okay, sorry…"

"Hoopa is a very complicated pokémon, yes. Not only it's stubborn with its possessions, there's also the fact that it doesn't have a fixed habitat and it can be wherever it wants whenever it wants. But that doesn't mean finding it will be impossible. I have a feeling that we will encounter it sooner than we expect." After blurting that convincing speech, Giles casually grabbed a sports magazine. The cover showed a young man being coached by a Hitmonlee.

All that talk made Emily want to land on Kalos already and the same could be said for Steven. For the group, the remainder of the flight went by mostly in silence, although they did talk for a bit about their respective pokémon. Emily revealed that she decided to take Trevor, Berry, and Hershey with her while Steven took his Metagross, Skarmory and Claydol to the trip. A little while after that, Emily decided to look through the window again and what she saw left her speechless.

"Look, guys, it's Kalos!" She squealed, her eyes sparkling like the midday's sun.

"Yes, we are almost there!" Giles answered with enthusiasm. "Now it won't be long until the plane starts descending."

"How exciting, the region looks so beautiful from there!" Even if he didn't show his excitement so openly, Steven was pretty enthused as well and he couldn't avoid letting a smile escape.

The foreign pair felt like a couple of aliens arriving Earth for the first time, even when seen from above the differences between Kalos and Hoenn were striking. And the thing is that reading about a different region and seeing pictures of it is not the same as actually getting to be there. As the plane kept approaching Kalos, the trio got to see the emblematic Prism Tower, which of course, drew some amazed "Ooh"s from them. Not long after that, the airplane started its descent towards the airport's landing strip. Once reaching the ground, it kept running through the ground only to come to a full stop a few seconds after. Now they were officially in Kalos!

A light indicated the passengers to unbuckle their seatbelts, which everybody did with more or less skill. All the people –including our trio, of course– got up and proceeded to leave the plane in an almost perfect row. Many were murmuring about how excited they were about having finally arrived at Lumiose. Our protagonists didn't need to say anything of the sort, they all knew how important that trip was and how happy they were about reaching their destination.

A stewardess stood next to the door that led outside the airplane. She said the same to every single person "Thanks for choosing our airline; I hope you enjoy your stay in Kalos!" The woman repeated the same sentence as our protagonists walked past her, although they didn't really notice her greeting. Their minds were too busy with the fact that now that they were in Kalos, an intense adventure was just about to unfold.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Kalos is eggcellent**

The group's first night in Kalos went as smooth as silk. Like Giles warned, they all ended feeling exhausted from the plane trip, so their first activity in Kalos was sleeping in their luxurious hotel rooms. Emily and Steven shared their bedroom while Giles slept in an individual one, not too far from theirs. It was important for them to rest well because their search for the mysterious Hoopa would begin the very next day. They wanted to waste no time.

As they planned, the next morning the trio left for Parfum Palace shortly after finishing their respective breakfasts. A very well dressed man standing next to the hotel's entrance opened the door for them as he wished for them to have a nice day, demonstrating the politeness Kalosians are known for. _"I hope everybody else is like this."_ Emily thought to herself as she and her two companions left the luxurious hotel behind.

"So, where are we going now?" Steven asked casually.

Giles cleared his throat loudly. "First, we must take a taxi that will leave us at the gate to Route 5 and then we will have to walk across Camphrier Town. After that, we only have to go through Route 7 for a little bit and then go into Route 6, which will finally take us to Parfum Palace!" It almost sounded like he was reading everything from a book. But of course it was easy for him to know what was where, Giles is Kalosian after all.

"That sounds like a pretty good excursion!" Steven exclaimed with a smile, he couldn't wait any longer to start with the trip in which he would hopefully find his valuable stones.

Emily began walking along with Giles and Steven as they started their search for a free cab. "Indeed, we are going to see so many places today! I hope we get to see some pokémon native to the region too."

"I'm pretty sure we will get to see some. Who knows, maybe one of you will catch a new pokémon!" Giles tried to do his best to make himself be heard among the noise of the traffic and the people chatting.

As couldn't have been otherwise, the streets of Lumiose City were filled to the brim. There were several signs warning people to be careful with pickpockets since they could use the number of people in their favor to go unnoticed. The tall buildings lining the streets seemed to look down on the pedestrians as the sun shone down on the boulevard. Of course, there were some pokémon around the place as well staying close to their trainers in case they might get lost, something very easy in that area of the big city.

It took some time for our protagonists to reach the other side, but the trio was finally making their way to a free taxi that was only a few meters away from them. However, they had to stop for a bit to give way to a rather large group of people that walked in the opposite direction to them. Giles was worried that this would make them miss the cab, but the driver didn't seem to have anything else to do but waiting for someone to come. Luckily for them, they could reach the vehicle. Giles gently knocked the co-pilot window.

"Thanks for choosing Lumi Cab!" The driver exclaimed as he lowered the window on his side, inviting the group to walk over to it. "The base fare's seven hundred and ten. You want a ride?"

"Yes, please. We are heading to the Route 5 gate." Giles explained as the cabbie nodded in response.

"Alright, just get in the taxi and we'll be there in no time!" The man beamed as he started the engine.

The traveling trio opened the doors and proceeded to take a seat. Giles chose to sit next to the cabbie while Steven and Emily sat on the back of the taxi. Without saying anything else, the man started driving. Emily thought it would be a good idea to give him some conversation by asking something trivial.

"How many people on average do you pick up every day?"

"Oh, around fifty or so! In this city, there's always someone in need of a taxi and you wouldn't believe the things I get to hear. I'm always amazed by the things my clients tell! Do you guys have anything interesting to talk about?"

"Well, we are in search of something very interesting." Steven answered in a mysterious tone.

"Very interesting? And what might that be?"

"Something that not everybody has seen." Giles decided to be cryptic as well.

"And what is that? Now I really need to know!" The man was even more interested than before, allowing the excitement to make itself obvious in his voice.

Emily's turn to speak arrived. "It's a pokémon, one very hard to find since it has plenty of methods to hide."

"Oh yeah, I know who you mean! But you must be careful, the fog is pretty annoying." The driver said as they left the North Boulevard of the city.

"Sure… Wait, what?" Emily asked with her eyebrows pulled together.

"Yeah, the fog it uses to conceal itself! It's pretty thick and annoying." He kept talking like if he didn't hear anything whatsoever. "I know because I once had to drive through a cloud of fog caused by that pokémon."

"I don't think we are talking about the same pokémon…" Giles muttered giving a bewildered look at the cabbie, who was still inside his own little world.

"And still I can't believe it! Too bad I scared it and it ended up creating that cloud of fog. I wanted to take a good look! See? I can tell interesting stories too." Out of his mind, the driver was going a bit faster than he should.

Steven was getting annoyed by the situation, but he refused to show it. "Monsieur, I think you should calm down…"

"But a pokémon of that very species shaped the south of Kalos and it was such an honor for me to have a glimpse of one since I'm from the south of Kalos myself! _Will you guys believe me if I said that I got to see Vol-_ "

" _Dude!_ " The enthusiastic driver was interrupted by a voice coming from the radio. "There's a couple on the South Boulevard asking for a taxi with seven seats so their pokémon can be with them too. Isn't that against the rules of the company?"

"Didn't Bernard say last week that having pokémon outside of their pokéballs inside the vehicle could be dangerous? If Bernard says so, then that's how it works." The driver had totally changed his attitude, sounding more serious.

"Alright dude, thanks for clearing it up! Bye!"

After his short conversation ended, the cabbie cleared his throat. "Well, what were we talking about?"

"How long until the gate to Route 5? That's about all we need to know." Giles asked in hopes that the driver wouldn't go nuts over that seemingly magnificent pokémon again.

"Good news my friend, we are almost there!" The cabbie cheered as the car turned right.

The inside of the vehicle got pretty quiet after that, with the engine and the slight gusts of wind being the only things heard. As they approached the Route 5 gate our protagonists looked through the taxi's windows, taking a look yet again at the bustling city. People came and went in a strange choreography, sometimes accidentally bumping into each other. That sometimes resulted in the people involved exchanged some nasty glares, but nothing else.

The car kept making its way towards the assigned destination and before Emily and the others could realize, they were already in front of the gate to Route 5. It consisted of a huge stone arch with a giant number 5 made from the same material right above it. A couple of people walked through the gate into the route while a few seconds later, a lone trainer exited the area. Once he stopped his vehicle, the driver turned to talk to Giles.

"That will be 1,250 pokédollars, please."

After Giles handed his money to the cabbie, the group exited the taxi being finally ready to venture into Route 5.

"Aah, this is absolutely one of my favorite routes of the region! As soon as we walk through that gate you'll see what I mean." Giles teased as he started walking towards the aforementioned without even waiting for Emily and Steven.

Despite that, it didn't take long for the couple to catch up to their impatient guide. Like Giles promised, as soon as they cross the gate the views of the route blows them away. For Emily and Steven, this route was extremely different from what they were used to seeing in Hoenn. The only Route from the region that remotely reminded them of the Kalosian one was Route 110, one of the paths that led to Mauville City. The skate park they saw upon entering brought to their minds the cycling road located on the said route.

"Isn't it great? One of the things that make this route well known is that skate park you guys are staring at now." Giles addressed the stunned couple, who were looking at the skaters perform various pirouettes and acrobatics. "Well, that and the fact that a famous skater comes here pretty often."

"Really? Who?" Emily asked.

"Her name is Korrina and she happens to be from the same city as I am, Shalour City."

"It must be quite an honor to be from the same place as such an important person." Steven said while putting his hand on his chin.

Emily smiled at her boyfriend's comment. "How do you think people from Rustboro feel?"

"Then I guess that could be applied to them as well…" He answered in a low, humble tone.

The trio kept marching through the route with the sound of the roller skates as background music. The voices of the skaters could be heard from time to time, normally commenting stuff about their performances. As they finally left the skate park behind, Emily took notice of the flower patches that adorned the place, making it look livelier. Giles explained that pokémon that live attached to these flowers live there, but for some reason, the girl couldn't remember well the names of the creatures.

As they walked up a slope, Giles felt the need to laud their current location. "Isn't this route great? I always liked it, I guess it's because there are several things to do here."

"I know what you mean!" Emily answered. "Routes aren't just some place to walk through in order to get to another city or something, I enjoy their different environments. Hoenn has some pretty nice routes too."

Steven was going to add his two cents but, as soon as they were done climbing the slope, somebody rushed towards them at full speed.

"Watch out!" All they could see was somebody dressed in white followed by two shorter figures. They were going really fast, so fast that our protagonists weren't sure if the other trio was human. "Are you guys ok?" One of them asked.

After taking a look at those three, they got to see a blonde girl wearing skating gear accompanied by two pokémon that looked at them with great interest. They had a humanoid figure and a black and blue body except for the torso, which was covered in yellow fur. Their bodies had some spikes on them as well.

Paralyzed by the presence of the girl, Giles left out a high-pitched exclamation. "Korrina!"

"Yes, that's me!" She responded with a goofy pose.

"Are you by any chance that famous skater my friend has been talking about?" Steven asked the young girl as her pokémon kept staring at the group.

"Yeah, that would be me! I'm Korrina, not only a skater but also Shalour City's gym leader!"

"Giles, why didn't you tell us before?" Emily raised her eyebrows. "That sure was a well-kept secret!"

He shrugged with a rather shy expression. "I don't know…"

"And they are my two buddies, Lucario and...Lucario the Second!" Korrina laughed a bit, but suddenly something caught her attention. "Wait, you and you… Isn't that a key stone?" Korrina addressed both Steven and Emily as she approached them to take a better look at their accessories.

"Why yes, they are. Are you a mega evolution user as well?" Steven asked.

"Right on!" She exclaimed while showing the trio one of her gloves, which had a key stone embedded on it. Then Korrina gestured towards one of her Lucario. "And if you look at him, you'll see that this guy here is wearing a Lucarionite." Indeed, the pokémon was wearing a wristband with a mega stone on it.

"That's great! You don't get to see people who use mega evolution all that often." Emily stated with a smile.

"Yes, that's because only people who have a very strong bond with their pokémon can achieve it." The younger girl answered with a proud expression.

In a failed effort to sound natural, Giles downloaded the Pokésaurus on his brain. "And because both key stones and mega stones are significantly recherché… The very few ones I've ever been able to witness were being carried by trainers such as yourself!"

"Translation: Mega stones are rare and he only saw a few trainers with them." Emily joked while throwing an amused glance at Giles, who was red as a Tamato Berry.

"Yes, that too! In fact, getting the key stone and mega stone I own wasn't easy for me or my pokémon." Then the gym leader addressed Giles. "I'm sure someday you and your pokémon will get one too!" Korrina smiled brightly, which seemed to put the poor guy in a total state of disbelief as he smiled back.

"In this region, is mega evolution as important as it is in Hoenn?" Emily asked the gym leader.

"Wait, does that mean that you guys aren't from here?"

"Exactly, we are from Hoenn. He's the only one from Kalos." Steven gestured in Giles's direction.

"Oh, I should have known before!" Korrina facepalmed. "Yes, mega evolution is very important in this region too. Our professor is dedicated to the research and my grandpa has an important tie to it. By the way, our champion uses mega evolution too."

Steven nodded. "Our region, Hoenn, happens to have an immense tie to mega evolution as well. Our guardian is said to achieve mega evolution to protect the region from disaster, such thing has apparently happened several times in the past."

"Oh wow, that sounds fascinating! Could you tell me more about it?" Suddenly, a buzzing noise could be heard. Korrina retrieved a pager out of her pocket and pouted slightly at the sight of the screen. "I wish I could talk a bit more with you guys, but I have to go back to the gym. I have some challengers to defeat!" She sighed as she put the pager back in her pocket. "I hope we meet again someday, I'm looking forward to it. Stay safe!" In the bat of an eye, Korrina and her two Lucario disappeared down the route.

As soon as our protagonist lost sight of the girl and her companions, they resumed their walk towards Parfum Palace. Getting to know one of the region's gym leaders was definitely a remarkable experience, but nothing compared to what they would be going through later on that same day. They had no idea!

"Okay, Camphrier Town is not too far away now. We will go through it quickly, but make sure to not ignore the beauty of the town!" Giles cheered as they approached the gate that would lead them into the aforementioned town.

Not long after that, they finally made it into Camphrier Town, where nothing relevant really happened. Except if you count Emily and Steven being impressed by the Shabboneau Castle and Giles telling them everything about it. That and Emily rambling about how the region was giving her good vibes so far. So no, nothing remarkable happened there, really. Crossing the town took them around twenty minutes.

The group was currently on Route 7, where a couple of buildings stood out: one of them looked like an ancient castle and the other totally looked like a day care. That and the river that ran next to the route made it a very picturesque place. No wonder a bunch of painters could be seen here and there, painting diverse scenes that the group had no time to look at.

"Guys, we won't need to walk too much through this route," Giles announced as they passed one of the artists. "See that detour on the road just ahead of us? That leads into Route 6, which will take us straight to Parfum Palace!"

"That's nice. How long is Route 6?" Steven asked.

"Not too long, if there's not a lot of people, we should reach it in the bat of an eye! It's a very beautiful place. I'm sure you guys will love it."

The Hoenn Champion chuckled. "Is there any place in Kalos that it's not beautiful?"

Giles thought about it for a moment until that place came to mind. "Definitely the Lumiose Badlands! Trust me, that's one nasty place. Only thugs and thieves hang out there." He murmured almost with revulsion.

"You said thugs and thieves! Does that mean there's any chance of Hoopa being in the badlands?" Emily asked with a snort of amusement. The guys looked at her with their eyebrows raised.

"I don't think so," Giles said. "Sometimes it can be very shy towards humans and if there's too many of them in one area, then I don't think it would want to stay there for too long. But those are just guesses!" He finished as if he wanted to invalidate what he said first.

They continued with their brief walk through Route 7, about to head to the spur that would take them to the next location until they saw an agitated looking woman exiting the building that resembled a day care. She was holding a basket covered with a cloth close to her chest and looking around, perhaps in search of something or someone. But as soon as she saw Emily and the others, she rushed towards them.

"Excuse me! Are you guys trainers by and chance?"

"Yes, all of us." Emily answered.

"Great! Then take this." The woman gave the basket to Emily and sighed in relief.

"You guys look responsible, I'm pretty sure you'll take good care of it. After all, I wouldn't give this to just anybody!"

"Wait, what's inside the basket?" Giles asked with curiosity.

"There's nothing more and nothing less than a pokémon egg! You see, I'm a pokémon breeder and in the day care we have a pokémon in charge of incubating the eggs that sometimes are laid here but the other day she...had fun with one of the pokémon staying here and she laid several eggs, but she still has to look over other eggs that are not hers. My husband and I decided that we would give at least four of her eggs to other trainers so she doesn't stress too much. We already gave away two, so this one is for you!" The breeder pointed at the basket. "Now I must leave, if any of you ever has any doubt, you can always come to the day care!"

The breeder waved goodbye as she walked back to the day care. Just like that, our protagonists saw themselves with an egg under their care. The question was, who would get to keep the future pokémon?

"I guess we are going to be this pokémon's family!" Steven exclaimed with a hint of excitement.

"Yeah, we can say that!" Emily raised the cloth a bit to take a look at the egg with a confused smile on her face.

Either way, that was far from being the most bizarre thing they'd experience that day. It was just matter of time for things to get off the wall.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Revelations on a library**

You know, if I could describe in one word what I feel right now, it would be "amazement". Route 6 is truly a beautiful place, just like something you would see on those magazines about luxury living. It's truly befitting of being the pathway to Parfum Palace! The place is filled with people taking pictures of the landscape and I can't blame them, the views here are deserving of being on a postal!

As for us, we still are perplexed about being on charge of a pokémon egg all of sudden. I'm carrying the basket which contains the egg and I still didn't decide to take a look at it. Probably I'm still trying to believe that we are carrying an egg with us for the first time. None of us has had experience with them before, but it's not like we don't know how they work or what they are. We only have to take good care of it and keep it with us and one day, a pokémon will hatch… I'm curious about what pokémon will be born from this egg.

"Giles, do you know where the room with that book is?" I ask while taking a look in between the trees, where nothing but tall grass can be seen.

"Of course! It's on the street level, we will only have to head north and we will literally be inside the library, it's very easy to find." He answers with enthusiasm.

"Do you go to that library whenever you visit the palace?" Steven asks as well.

"Yes, there's always something interesting to read there. For example, that specific book I have in mind has lots of interesting things about the lore of the Kalos region, although we are only going to read about a concrete subject." Giles keeps reminding us what we came to do here, even if he doesn't mind showing us around, he doesn't want us to be distracted either and I understand him.

We are closer to the end of Route 6 and therefore, closer to Parfum Palace. A few of the bushes lining the path seem to be rustling, probably a few pokémon are frolicking among them. Now that I think about it, we haven't seen any Kalos pokémon so far. Although I don't think it will be too long until we get to see one.

And as I think about that, one of the bushes at our right makes an even louder rustling noise and something seems to come out of it. Before I can do anything, something tackles my leg. I look down and I see a small, purple eyed pokémon holding on to my leg as if its life depended on it. Giles and Steven seem to be as shocked as I am. The pokémon looks back at me with a slightly unsettling face, like if it had no emotion at all… But suddenly it smiles, surprising us even more. I take out the Pokédex to find out what kind of pokémon this is.

The device identifies the pokémon as Espurr.

"The organ that emits its intense psychic power is sheltered by its ears to keep power from leaking out."

So, we literally just got a pokémon egg handed to us and now a pokémon comes out of nowhere and wants to be with me? I actually have no problem with that! I proceed to grab from my bag one of the Super Balls I bought back in Hoenn, I'm raring to catch this pokémon! Giles and Steven say nothing as I step back a bit from the clingy Espurr and I throw the ball at it. The small pokémon is absorbed into the device, which falls to the ground and starts shaking. After three times, a click can finally be heard. A little Espurr just joined us!

"So that just happened." Steven chuckles a little bit.

"Yes, got a problem with that?" I ask jokingly.

"Not at all! It's just that I find amusing how easy it is for you to catch a pokémon." He answers as we resume our walk towards Parfum Palace.

"That Espurr wanted to come with me either way, I guess that helped." I respond as I put Espurr's pokéball inside my bag. I'm so glad I caught my first Kalos pokémon!

We walk a bit more and we leave Route 6 behind. Now we walk through a path lined with bushes, right now we are in front of the palace! I can't help but get my camera and take a picture; I know my parents will love to see it! This building looks so majestic; it's more than obvious that the king spared no expense on it.

I would say that this building is old, but it's so well cared for that it seems to be totally new, at least on the outside. Who would say that it's actually 300 years old? If I remember correctly, it was built after a war involving several regions ended. I think the Unova and Kalos regions were allies and I even recall reading that there are statues representing the most important Unova deities on the palace's garden. I really want to see it, but I don't think we will get to do that today… Unless finding that book doesn't take too long.

We approach the gates that separate the palace from the outside; a very elegant snake pokémon is sculpted on it. The details on the gate alone are stunning; it must be worth a fortune! As we stand here, a middle aged man walks towards us; he is probably the one guarding the gate.

"Bonjour! You are wishing to visit this palace, am I correct?" The gatekeeper grins in a rather unsettling way.

"Exactly!" We answer almost at the same time.

"Alright… Then you will have to pay a fee of 1,000 pokédollars or this will be all you'll see of this beautiful palace!" The man now reaches out his hand, waiting for us to give him the money for the ticket.

We discreetly make an annoyed face as we reach for said quantity of money in our wallets. We hand it to the guard, who counts the notes with a very distrusting look, like if he thought that we are trying to cheat him. Luckily, he finally finishes counting the money and grants us access to the building with a curt nod accompanied of an extremely vain expression. We quickly walk through the gates to avoid having to deal with that look of his any longer.

"Alright guys, we are going straight to the library but on the meantime, what do you think of this beautiful garden?" Giles asks as we walk through the palace's field.

Oh, so we actually get to see the garden, that's great! It's full of mazes made out of topiary plants and several highly imposing statues which of course, include those of the Unova guardians, the pokémon said to represent truth and ideals. Without hesitation, I hand the basket containing the egg to Steven and I get my camera out to take a picture, I really want to keep these memories!

Now Steven is the one carrying the egg around, he doesn't seem to mind doing so. One could say that the three of us are in charge of this egg but what I wonder is, what will happen when the pokémon in the egg hatches? Who will it choose? I guess that depends on who spends more time taking care of it and walking around with the egg. If it's the offspring of a pokémon who warms up eggs belonging to other pokémon, then it must be a Fire type. I never had a Fire type pokémon, getting one would be nice!

We walk past a gardener taking care of one of the mazes; a Scyther is by his side helping him to give some retouches to the plants. It's truly amazing to see how pokémon and people help each other so much in this region! That's something I love from being a Ranger, you need your pokémon and your pokémon need you. Training pokémon is about that, being able to be somebody your pokémon can trust. It's also one of the reasons that made me want to become a trainer; I wanted to know more about pokémon!

And now I'm about to learn more about a pokémon in particular, because we are entering the palace right now and for the fiftieth time on this journey, I'm completely blown away by the sights: the long corridors, which are painted in a regal red hue, lead into multiple rooms. The walls are decorated with lots of exquisitely painted paintings and equally beautiful statues made out of gold. That king sure wanted to show his wealth and power to the world!

Giles gestures us to follow him and we start walking through the aisles. I don't know about Steven or Giles, but I feel a slight sensation of respect as I walk through these corridors, to think that many years ago a king was walking on the same floor as we do right now! How many times did he actually walk around this very aisle? I can't stop making questions to myself right now; I hope Giles can answer them later!

One of the paintings really catches my attention; a depressed looking man is sitting on a chair. The look on his eyes seems to tell many different stories and I can tell that most of them are sad. It almost feels like his eyes pierce through the paint and reach the viewer. He also seems to be a very wealthy man.

"Giles, this man is the former king, isn't he?" I question without taking my eyes off of the picture.

"Yes, you got it! That's king AZ, the same king who built Parfum Palace. It's said that he is still wandering the region to this day." Giles explains still walking towards the library.

"Oh!" I exclaim remembering all of sudden everything I heard about him on school. King AZ and his pokémon took part on a great war many, many years ago. On that war, one of his pokémon died and he built a giant machine to bring her back to life, but at the cost of the lives of many other pokémon and some say that maybe even a few people. He succeeded with the resurrection of his pokémon, but the creature abandoned him after realizing what he had done. It's understandable that he has such an expression on the portrait! It's the face of a man regretting what he did in the past.

In the bat of an eye, I'm walking behind Steven and Giles again, reaching them wasn't too difficult since they didn't walk too far away. Either way, I think we are close to the library because our steps are getting slower. There's a door in front of us with a small sign depicting a pile of books next to it. Yes, we finally reached the library!

Giles opens the door carefully just in case somebody else is inside. Indeed, a few people are sitting down on some comfortable looking armchairs reading a book in some cases and a newspaper in others. We enter the library in silence and after that, Giles closes the door with the same discretion as he opened it. The people there don't mind our arrival. This means it's time to look for that book!

Again, Giles gestures us to follow him. He stops in front of an expensive looking shelf overflowing with books of all sizes. "If I'm not mistaken, the book we are looking for could be here." He starts looking through the spines of the different books, trying to find the title of that famous publication, but suddenly Giles frowns and looks at our direction. "It's not there; we must look for it somewhere else…" He says in a low tone.

We move on to a different bookshelf. This one is bigger and just like the other one, is full of books. Both Steven and I start looking through the different books too in search of a title that can suggest it being about legends related to the Kalos region. All I see so far are several books about how to identify the pokémon from the Kalos region; we could say it's like an old fashioned Pokédex!

"I think I have it!" Steven is holding a thick book on his hands.

Giles approaches him and reads the title out loud. "The many myths and legends of Kalos… Yes, it's that one! Could you please give it to me?"

"Sure." Steven hands the heavy volume to Giles.

He starts flipping the pages almost immediately and a small cloud of dust raises from the paper, which makes him cough a bit. I approach him to take a good look of what's written on the pages and Steven does the same. Giles is deeply focused on the book right now; I don't think he realized that we are behind him!

"Alright, here it is!" He exclaims triumphantly, earning him a few annoyed looks from the people on the room. "This is the chapter talking about Hoopa." He says in a lower voice this time.

"Well, let's see what we can learn from this devious creature." Steven mutters staring at the paper.

"You guys will learn quite a few interesting things, that's for sure. For example, note how it says that Hoopa is even stronger that it seems to be at first sight."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"Well, how do I put this… Hoopa is not what it appears to be. You see, there's something that triggers it to change between forms. One of them is his true appearance, in that one he grows to an enormous size and has six arms which are adorned with a ring each. Those rings are said to be able to transport almost anything you can imagine!"

"So… We are going after a giant juggernaut?" I question trying to visualize what it would look like… and I don't like it!

"More or less…" Giles keeps reading through the book.

"What about the other form?" Steven wants to know.

"Oh yeah, its Confined form, that's the one it takes on more often! That one has nothing to do with its real form, it's much smaller and has a pretty inoffensive look, but that doesn't mean it's any less powerful. I think we can say that while it's on its Confined form, his power is half of what it actually is… And that's still a whole lot."

"So, what will happen when we come across it?" I ask while glancing at the paragraph which mentions Hoopa's forms.

"If you want to know if we will get to see its true form, I highly doubt it. There's several factors involved on it taking on its real appearance, so I don't think we should have to worry about that."

"But, what if that's the case?" Steven seems concerned.

"Then we will have to get ready to fight it. Trust me; it can be very fierce with its full power unleashed!" Giles exclaims causing yet again the annoyance of the people sitting on the room. "But that's nothing that a good battle can't fix." He lowers his tone again.

We read in silence for a little bit before Steven decides to talk again. "A pokémon with such powers must be very interesting for people with mean intentions."

Giles seems to go pale after hearing Steven's observation. He seems to feel really uncomfortable right now. "Actually… A few years ago an evil organization was behind Hoopa."

"Really? What was their goal?" I question now looking at Giles.

"They wanted to use his powers to rule over the whole region, it's as simple yet as complicated as it sounds. But suddenly one day, things belonging to that organization started disappearing and they knew that Hoopa was behind it. They tried to put a stop to that, but the next thing they knew is that their headquarters were suddenly warped to the Kalos desert and Hoopa was nowhere to be found." Giles takes a deep breath after finishing his incredible account, like if he felt relieved after talking about it. I guess he just thinks it was unfair!

"At least it could free itself from the people who tried to harm it!" I remember all the incidents with Team Aqua as I speak.

"Yeah, I'm glad about that." Giles says. "Just so you know, that team disbanded after the incident so I don't think that Hoopa is in danger."

"Good! No pokémon should go through that." Steven gives his two cents. "Is there anything else in the book that can help us with our investigation?"

"Let me see… It says that these pokémon often try to avoid to be seen so they aren't caught up on their pranks, so they often dwell on isolated or abandoned places. I know that there's quite a few abandoned buildings around this region so who knows, we could find it anywhere!"

"But how do we know if that Hoopa is the one we are going after and not a different one?" I understand that Hoopa is a quite rare pokémon but there's more than one apparently so, what if we come across one that has nothing to do with the incidents in Hoenn?

"Trust me, we will know as soon as we see it. That pokémon hates to be caught up!" It feels like Gilles really knows what he's talking about, probably that comes from his previous encounters with Hoopa.

"I'm pretty sure that we will end up catching the petty thief that took my rocks away either way…" Steven says while crossing his arms. He is probably the most eager out of us to find Hoopa!

I'm still looking forward to the day we find it, but now that I know that it has two different appearances I feel more uneasy. Luckily, we will find a way to confront it and convince it to take everything back to where it rightfully belongs, I'm sure of it!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: A very noisy anecdote**

After all the interesting facts we learned yesterday at Parfum Palace's library, we are having a pretty relaxed day. This morning we haven't done anything worth mentioning, but right now we are going to a cafeteria that's right in front of the hotel, Giles has told us that they sell a delicious cake there and the staff is pretty nice. Although that's not everything he said to us, there's something even more important.

In a couple of days, we will leave Lumiose and we will go to Laverre City, which can be accessed through Route 14. I know I will miss Lumiose City; it's such a great place! I hope we do come back here eventually during this journey. Although Kalos has many other great places on its geography and from what Giles has told us, Laverre City is also an amazing place that we will enjoy a lot.

We finally made it to the café, there's quite a lot of people outside and most of them share their meals with their pokémon, which I find endearing. "I really want to leave our pokémon outside so they can eat with us." I voice trying to spot a free table.

"Me too, but we won't be able to let all of them out from what I can see." Steven has his hand resting on his chin, as he always does when pondering over something.

"We should send outside only one of them, we wouldn't be able to fit in there otherwise." Giles adds while throwing a pokéball he got from his pocket. "I'm going with Ampharos!" The Electric type emerges from the device, making happy cries as she looks around.

"Then I will go with Trevor!" As soon as I send him out, Trevor also proceeds to show his contentment but all of sudden, all of his focus goes to Giles's Ampharos. She blushes from the sudden attention provided by Trevor, who is staring at her like if he just saw the most beautiful thing ever. I have seen this before!

"I will let Aggron out, I'm sure he wants to stretch his legs too." Finally, Steven sends out his pokémon as well. We can finally sit down and enjoy of that cake Giles has been talking about.

We walk towards the only free table remaining and we all sit down. I sit facing the street, with Giles sitting in front of me and Steven at my right. Aggron is sitting between Giles and Steven, while Ampharos and Trevor sit together. He is having a hard time trying to take his eyes off of her and that makes Ampharos look red instead of yellow. She returns several glances at Trevor, but she does it shyly.

"I never mentioned this, but my Ampharos can be pretty shy around pokémon she doesn't know specially if, uh… they show interest in her." Giles looks amused at his pokémon, who is almost covering her face with her paws. "Guys, do you think we can afford dealing with another egg?" He jokes while pointing at the basket containing the mysterious egg, which he has been carrying around during this whole day.

The three of us burst into laughter as Trevor blushes almost as hard as Ampharos, they are more than aware of what we just said. No one should take pokémon as dumb creatures; they sure know what goes on around them!

"I don't know, as long as the parties involved don't mind…" I tease while looking at Trevor with an entertained smile. I can tell he is embarrassed from the way he gives me the side eye.

"I think we should stop bewildering the happy couple." Steven can't hide he is having fun too watching the two's reaction, but he is right. "Just imagine us alone and then a group of people comes to comment how cute we look together. Wouldn't that be extremely uncomfortable?" He addresses me.

"Yeah, I see your point."

"Steven, you are such a party popper!" Giles crosses his arms and rolls his eyes while pretending to be angry at Steven's words.

"I just thought it would be the best for them and…"

"I was just kidding, dude!" Giles interrupts Steven with a laugh. He just answers with an amused smile; it looks like he does enjoy Giles's jokes. Some of them are actually really funny!

A tall and lean woman dressed in a waiter outfit walks towards our table. She is holding a small notebook in one of her hands.

"Bonjour! What would you like to order?" She gets the paper ready to write down our petitions.

"A portion of Maranga berry cake for each one of us, si vouz plait." Giles says politely as the waitress writes down the order on her notebook.

"What about the drinks?" The waitress questions.

"Lemonade for me and the pokémon. What about you, guys?" Giles speaks again.

"I want a soda, please."

"I'll just have some water, thank you." Steven says.

"Perfect! I will be back with your orders soon." The young woman smiles before going back to the inside of the café, which also seems to be really crowded, at least as seen from here.

We stay silent for a little bit, just looking around us. Yet more people keep coming to this café, but some turn back after seeing how crowded the place is.

"This is one of the most famous cafés on the North Boulevard." Giles explains while also eyeing the amount of people on the area. "All because of the Maranga berry cake. That fruit is very rare since it's the mutation of the berries Salac and Petaya, that's not something you get every day!"

"It's true; you don't see that too often. It only happens when you plant certain berry trees next to each other." I remember that from my studies at the Ranger school.

"Exactly! One must know what kind of plants they have to put together if they are trying to get a concrete type of berry, some harvesters aren't really aware of that." Giles agrees as he eyes discreetly Trevor and Ampharos, it looks like they aren't feeling so agitated now.

I take a look at the rest of groups on the terrace. Most of them are families, groups of friends or honeymooners. The vast majority of them have their pokémon out of their pokéballs, just like I said before. Most of them are small pokémon, I see a few Espurr over there. There's also an adorable pokémon with ribbons on its ears and another one with a really cool haircut which reminds me of a pamela hat.

And when I thought that things couldn't get more interesting, a man selling several goodies appears. He is trying to walk between the tables selling his stuff, but a waiter soon comes to tell him that that's not allowed.

"But what if people need to buy something for their pokémon?" The seller asks with a frown.

"Then they will go to the Pokémon Center, they can buy whatever they need there." The waiter is pretty calm while trying to convince the other man to leave.

"But… What if they need it RIGHT NOW?" The hawker insists.

"Then they'll go to the Pokémon Center RIGHT AFTER they are done here."

"Oh, in that case…" The seller turns around to leave but, suddenly, he turns back and throws most of the items he was carrying. "IT'S A FREE FOR ALL, PEOPLE!" Now, he runs away before the waiter can even think about chasing him.

"Well, that was weird." Steven comments observing how some people timidly grab a few of the items on the floor.

"That kind of things can be seen often on Lumiose, buddy." Giles seems to be entertained by the whole scene we just witnessed.

Before I can say anything, the waitress that attended us before reappears, this time with a tray containing the drinks we asked for. "Here you go your drinks; I'll bring the cake in the bat of an eye!" After serving our orders, she leaves again.

"Giles, what's the weirdest thing you have seen here on Kalos?" After that small incident, now I'm in the mood to hear that kind of anecdotes.

"There's a few, like the time I came across a man riding a monocycle with a Pidgey on his shoulder claiming that he was some well known pirate and that he was sailing the seven seas or something like that."

"Was he really convinced that he was aboard a ship?" Steven asks with curiosity.

"Apparently yes, he said that he had to get the sails repaired or else he wouldn't be able to reach some place I didn't get to hear. A policeman took him away saying that he was disrupting the normal functioning of the circulation and indeed, he was in the middle of the sidewalk with his arms open, barely allowing anyone to pass."

"That reminds me of the time an angry woman came to Devon Corporation claiming that we gave her the wrong pokémon. She brought us an Helix fossil and we gave her an Omanyte, just as expected, but she came back saying that she asked for an Helix and not that pokémon. To this very day I'm still trying to understand what she meant." Steven rests a hand on his chin again, thinking about that story.

"If I had to talk about something weird, I must mention the time I had to pass myself as Lisia's stylist to ask her for a way to reach Mossdeep City. I got lost and ended up in an island I had never been to before." What good times those were!

"Really? That sounds like it came straight from a movie!" Giles laughs. "Although that could be said for all the anecdotes we just told."

All of sudden, a cake dish appears in front of me. The same happens with the rest, the waitress leaves the dishes so quickly that we can barely see her. It looks like she is really eager to do her job!

"Here you go, I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to come to pay for the orders as soon as you finish." She ends the sentence with a courteous gesture and leaves yet again.

"So it's time to enjoy the cake. Bon appétit!" Giles says before taking a piece of cake.

The rest of us proceed to do the same. The cake does look pretty good, it's a sponge cake with green colored sauce and a couple of Maranga berries on top of it. I stuff my mouth with a piece of the pie and… Indeed, it tastes so good! It's very sweet and the taste of the Maranga berry is a bit strong, but I like that. Now I understand why it's so popular.

"This is really good!" Steven exclaims with a satisfied expression.

We take a look at our pokémon; they are loving the cake too. It's as if this cake was made to be likeable to everybody! We start taking sips from our respective drinks too; it helps with the sweetness of the pie. It's not like it's overly sweet or anything, at least so far, but I don't think that eating too much of it without drinking anything is something recommendable at all.

"I'm curious Giles, when you went to Hoenn to research Hoopa's actions, where did you go first?" Steven asks after gulping down a bit of cake.

"Lilycove City! When the plane landed, I was amazed by everything I saw. It makes a really good destination for tourists." Giles takes his phone out to show us a picture. "I took it in front of the harbor, I couldn't resist and I had to take a picture before leaving the city!"

"You did well; Lilycove City's harbor is great!" I exclaim while looking at the picture.

"Yes, that's why it's one of my dad's favourite places on the region." Steven adds with a nostalgic expression that I can't help but notice.

"Are you feeling homesick?"

"Yes, but only a little." Steven admits.

"Well, it's understandable with all this talk about Lilycove!" I say while briefly putting my arm around his shoulders.

"Whenever I'm away from Kalos I tend to feel a bit homesick, but it doesn't last too much. Traveling is my passion, after all!" Giles states while putting the phone back into his pocket.

"Nothing should hold us back from enjoying our hobbies." Steven says. "Not even sneaky little pokémon who like to grab things that don't even belong to them."

"Steven, don't forget that Hoopa is much more than just a sneaky little pokémon!" Giles laughs before stuffing his mouth with yet another bit of pie.

"I know, I know. That's just the way I see it." Steven answers calmly.

After that exchange, we focus on our food and drinks. The buzz around us keeps us from being bored; everybody is talking and making noises with their spoons and forks. Lumiose is truly a city full of life! I can't wait to see how the atmosphere on Laverre City is like!

Just like I said before, I can't avoid having to drink large gulps of soda every now and then. If I try to eat too much of the cake without drinking anything, then it starts to feel way to sweet, even if I don't dislike the flavor of it. I cough a couple of times trying to recover from the cloying sensation in my throat right before drinking some soda again. I almost drank all of it! Giles and Steven don't seem to have the same problem, neither do our pokémon. I guess I'm not used to this kind of berries!

Despite that, I'm almost done with the cake and I'm not alone, all of us have only a little bit of it remaining on our dishes. When you're having so much fun, you barely realize that you are eating so fast! I could say this one is being one of my favorite days since we are on Kalos, maybe we aren't doing anything too interesting but we are having fun, and that's what matters.

In only a couple of minutes, we are already done. I don't think I can eat anything else until dinner time! Giles gets up to go tell the waitress we already finished. Both Steven and I also get up to withdraw our pokémon back into their pokéballs.

"Trevor, it's time to go back!" When I show him the pokéball, Trevor looks mildly upset. I understand him; nobody wants to be taken away from their crush! Ampharos looks somewhat sad about it too… Or maybe it's just her shyness. Who knows?

Aggron has no problem with being taken back to his pokéball, after that meal, he probably wants to rest. Now, Giles is back and the waitress is accompanying him.

"The pieces of cake and the drinks will be 5,250 pokédollars, please." She says while putting down on the table an empty tray, where I presume she will put the empty dishes and bottles.

"Here you go!" Giles exclaims without giving us any time to react, paying the meal himself. "I'm your guide through this place and I'm the one who recommended the cake, so I think I should pay it." He addresses us while handing the money over to the woman. After that, he quickly withdraws his Ampharos and picks up the basket containing the egg.

"Thank you, I hope everything was of your liking!" The waitress bows slightly before starting to pick up everything on the table. As she does, we leave and go back to the hotel. I'm glad we only have to walk across the road!

Luckily for us, the traffic lights are green right now. We don't have too much to do in the hotel right now besides waiting for dinner time, but spending some time relaxing while doing nothing is not that bad of a plan, right? Unlike in the morning hours', walking through the streets is way easier because it's not so full of people going everywhere. It's still a bustling city, of course, but it's not as stressing.

Reaching the other side of street barely takes us a few seconds; we are right in front of the hotel door. A man opens it and welcomes us with a courteous gesture, which we respond to with a "Thank you."

"Okay, I guess we can retire to our bedrooms as for now or something. All I wanna do now is take a nap!" Giles can barely contain a yawn. He is the kind of people who often feels sleepy after eating a lot.

"I think we will do the same, I feel like watching some TV. What about you?" I ask Steven.

"That's fine by me, I can't think of anything else to do right now, to be honest."

"Fine, we will reunite at dinner time. Let's go to the elevator!" Giles starts walking towards the lift, we promptly follow him.

Being on this hotel still feels a bit strange, I have never slept in such a luxurious place! I would have conformed to a simple hostel, but apparently Giles felt that he should let us see how staying at one of the most luxurious hotels in the world feels like. I'm not complaining, though! Although sometimes I do wonder where he got the money from, this place is very far from being low-cost.

Even the inside of the elevator is really fancy! The walls are colored in a deep blue hue and the floors are made of sandstone tiles. There's also a mirror that takes half of the wall in front of the door. I wonder if the person who built this hotel somehow got inspired in Parfum Palace. Both places are equally impressive!

The doors open and we walk out of the elevator, now in the first floor where our rooms are located. They are not too far apart from each other, although there are quite a few rooms here.

"Well guys, see you at dinner time!" Giles says before walking towards his bedroom, grabbing the magnetic key from his left pocket.

I follow Steven as we head to our room, there's at least four hours until dinner time and maybe we could even take a short nap as Giles is going to do. Somehow this is making me wonder how we are going to spend our last days on Lumiose. Will we keep researching Hoopa, or will we go to places with no other intention than having fun? I like either option!

After walking a bit, we reach the door to our bedroom, number 270. Steven uses the magnetic key and opens the door, allowing us to walk in. Our bedroom is pretty big. The floors are covered by red carpet and the walls are painted white, with golden lines on the top, nearing the ceiling. A king sized bed is on the middle of the bedroom, with a considerably big TV just in front of it. Both Steven and I take our shoes off and recline on the bed, with the pillows behind our back. I turn on the TV and a program about the preparation of Lumiose Galettes is being broadcasted. I hope we get to give those a try!

"This reminds me of how on some Saturdays my mother would make those." Steven says with a hint of nostalgia and that makes me remember something.

"Steven! Now that we are here in Kalos, you could introduce me to your mother!"

"You're right, I think we should talk with Giles about it. What's more-" Suddenly, the phone starts ringing. "I'll go get it."

Steven gets up and grabs the phone, but no one seems to be answering. "That's strange." I mutter as I get up. Suddenly, the phone starts ringing again but not only here, also on the rest of rooms. And I even would say that it's progressively starting to ring in the rest of floors, the sound is getting louder and louder with each second. What is going on?

We get out of the room to see how almost everybody else on this floor is letting their rooms, trying to find out where the problem comes from. It almost feels as if someone was playing a very organized trick. Otherwise, there's no way I can understand why all of the phones on the hotel are sounding at the same time. And I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling the same way.

"Hey guys, what the heck is going on?" Giles has caught up with us; he is as disconcerted as everybody else is.

"No idea, it all happened all of sudden!" I answer while we walk downstairs along with all the other people; it looks like everybody in the hotel is heading to the street floor in search of answers.

"Yes, it looks like it started either in our room or in a room located farther away from us." Steven adds with a bothered look.

When we get there, a multitude is already asking for an explanation to the man in the desk, who is trying to avoid losing his composure. He can barely be heard among the sound of the ringing phones!

"Dear guests please, keep calm! We are going to address this problem as soon as possible; we first need to find the source of it!"

"The source of it? What about if you start trying to actually do something?" An angry voice can be heard among the crowd.

"Kind sir, I swear we are working on it!" The receptionist is visibly flustered; he wipes off the sweat of his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Aah, this feels like a spiderweb, I don't even know what to do anymore!" Another voice complains.

"Yes, this is making us feel trapped, trapped in this annoying noise!" A woman situated in the front of the multitude beams angrily.

"I'm aware, I'm aware of it! Please, let us do something!" The receptionist begs as he starts moving around several wires belonging to the phones on the reception, but the sound doesn't stop.

The man keeps messing around with the phones on the reception's desk and a panel that presumably controls the rest of phones on the hotel. Right as a man starts complaining that his ears are literally ringing, the ruckus suddenly stops. The receptionist, who was crouched behind the desk, emerges from behind it again with his face red in rage.

"Zut! ZUUUUUUUUUT!" He screams something in Kalosian. "WHAT KIND OF BAD JOKE IS THIS? WHO IS BEHIND THIS? I WANT TO KNOW!"

After the receptionist says that, everybody flees back to their respective rooms or wherever they were before the incident happened. The employee suddenly snaps out of his sudden rage burst, frantically looking around him as if he had no idea where he is right now.

"It looks like we can add something else to our list of strange stories to tell!" Giles laughs discreetly.

"Yeah, you could say that!" I agree as I witness how the man on the desk literally jumps from behind the counter and runs to a room with a "Staff only" sign. He might need some time to recover from such a weird happening!

"Definitely." Steven murmurs as we head back to the elevator.

Probably the most bizarre event that we have experienced ever since we are in this region!


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Mega-in-law**

This is the last day we will sleep on Lumiose City. Tomorrow in the afternoon we will go to Laverre City. I'm very excited about moving on to a different place, but at the same time, I know I will miss Lumiose City. This place is great, it has everything! And I'm sure there are many more places we haven't seen yet, maybe Giles will take us to see the rest of the city some other day… Although we aren't here for tourism, we are trying to find someone. I'm so amazed by the fact of traveling through Kalos that sometimes I can't help but leave the real reason of our trip in the back of my mind!

But anyway, today we are going to another café and Giles has told us that this one is very different from the one we visited yesterday. It's Café Soleil, located in the South Boulevard. Giles says that this place is often visited by renowned people and that's why it's deemed one of the most famous places in the city. We came here with a taxi a little while ago and now we are heading for the establishment.

I definitely can tell we are on a high class area, as we approach the café I notice how most of the people is very well dressed and walk with an air of superiority surrounding them. Like this one woman who just passed us, she walked like if she was on a catwalk or something. Almost everyone on this part of the city seems to be that kind of person who could allow themselves to use their bills as napkins. Sometimes I wish I could do that!

"Look, we arrived!" Giles announces as we stop in front of a red door. There are two huge windows at either side of the door. I take a quick look before we enter.

The floor is covered on white tiles and the walls are painted in a beige color. Expensive looking wooden panels cover the lower half of the walls and a few wall lights are distributed on the upper half of them. The furniture also looks pretty expensive; I'm dying to sit down on one of those couches. They look so comfortable! And speaking of the couches, I notice something or rather, someone, who soon catches my attention.

As we enter the bar, I take a discreet glance at her. She's a middle aged woman who is wearing a long, black trench coat and a pamela of the same color. The lady is reading a book and there's a Gardevoir sitting beside her. I don't know why, but I feel I have seen this woman somewhere else.

"It's Diantha!" Giles tries to contain a gasp.

"Really?" I ask trying to believe it. We are in the same room as Diantha, the awesome actress! My mother is her number one fan! Now this is something she will be glad to hear about.

"Yes, really." Steven says with a smile as he approaches Diantha. Does he know her? Maybe he is going to ask her for an autograph!

Steven clears his throat once he is in front of Diantha. Immediately, she looks up and notices Steven. A big smile appears on Diantha's face. It looks like they do know each other! Did I possibly miss something?

"Oh dear!" Diantha exclaims as she puts her book aside and gets up to give Steven a big hug.

"What's going on?" Giles is probably as puzzled as I am.

"Please, come here!" Steven gestures us to come closer.

I can't believe I'm this close to a celebrity such as Diantha! Judging Giles's expression, he is also surprised about the events unfolding in front of us.

"I think it's time to make some introductions. Emily, Giles, I'm sure you know Diantha because of her work as an actress, but there is something more to her. She is my mother!" Steven looks at us, waiting for our reactions.

Now that I think about it, there are quite a few striking similarities between them, like their eyes and nose. I never thought that they could be related! This is probably one of these things I would have never considered. That explains why he told me she was living in Kalos due to her job! I wish he had told me who his mother is before.

"Miss Diantha! I knew you had a son, but I had no idea it was him." Giles can't stop looking alternatively at both Steven and Diantha.

"You don't need to call me a Miss; you can address me as tú! By the way, what's your name?" Diantha has a very calm and polite demeanor; she looks even prettier in person!

"My name is Giles and this is-" Giles is interrupted.

"Emily, I know! Steven has talked so much about you. I'm very happy to get to see you in the flesh!" She approaches me and offers her hand for a handshake, which I correspond. Her hands are incredibly soft but, what did I expect from a superstar like her?

This just feels so surreal, I just found out that a very famous actress is my mother-in-law and not only that, but my mom is a big fan of her! I really want to tell her right now. Guess what? That's exactly what I'm going to do!

"Diantha, could you please make me a little big favor?" I ask feeling a great respect. I never thought I would have this woman as my in-law!

"Sure! What it is, an autograph?" She says cheerfully, I believe she is joking around a bit with the autograph part.

"More or less. I want you to talk with someone on the phone!" I make a little pause, observing her reaction. She doesn't seem to mind. "You see, my mom is a great fan of yours, I would say she is in fact your number one fan! And since we just discovered that we have some ties… I thought it would be great if you were the one giving her the news. You know, if you don't mind!"

"Of course dear! I don't mind doing that, giving a little surprise to a fan is always nice, especially if she is also a part of the family!"

"Great! Wait a second please, I'll get her number." With a quick gesture, I grab the mobile phone from my bag and I open the phone's agenda. It doesn't take me too long until I find my mom's number. I press "Call" and I hand the phone over to Diantha.

She is now waiting for a response. Mom won't hesitate to answer; she picks up the phone almost immediately when dad or I call her.

"…?"

"Hello! Are you Emily's mother?"

"…"

"Good! Can you recognize my voice?"

"…!"

"So, do you know who I am?"

"OF COURSE I DO, NOW I REALIZED!" Now mom is talking so loudly we can hear her, she sure got excited!

"I'm glad you do!" Diantha covers the phone's microphone. "By the way Emily, what's your mother's name?"

"Claire."

"Okay!" Now she uncovers the microphone, ready to talk to mom again. "So, Claire, I'm here with your daughter and her travelling companions. There's a very important thing you should know."

"Good but first… GREG, I'M TALKING TO DIANTHA ON THE PHONE! Hold up, my husband is coming!" It looks like dad is going to get the news too!

"Sure! Don't worry, I don't mind waiting" From Diantha's expression, I can tell she is having fun with this!

"WOW! ARE YOU REALLY DIANTHA?" Dad's voice can be heard easily too. "TELL ME, ARE YOU GOING TO FILM ANY NEW MOVIES SOON?"

"No, unfortunately not, I'm currently busy with other projects. But I think I might get an offer very soon!"

"WELL THAT'S TOO BAD. DID YOU KNOW THAT MY WIFE IS YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN? SHE ALWAYS SAYS THAT YOU DID AN AMAZING JOB ON 'ONE WILD OAK'!"

"That's very nice to hear! I had so much fun while working on that movie. Now if you will excuse me, could you give the phone back to your wife, please?"

"SURE THING!"

"DID YOU SEE THAT? MY HUSBAND IS ALSO YOUR FAN, ALTHOUGH I DOUBT ANYONE CAN BE MORE OF A FAN THAN I AM! BY THE WAY, WHAT WAS THAT THING THAT YOU WANTED TO TELL ME?"

"Well, you'll see, I'm actually the mother of one of your daughter's travelling partners. I believe you know him already." Diantha looks in Steven's direction and smiles.

"NO WAY! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Just as expected!

"No, I'm not. I'm Steven's mother!"

"BUT THAT'S SO AWESOME! MY FAVORITE ACTRESS IS ALSO THE MOTHER OF MY SON-IN-LAW! PLEASE GIVE THE PHONE TO MY DAUGHTER."

"Okay! It was a pleasure talking to you."

"SAME HERE!"

Diantha gives the phone back to me and I put it on my ear. "And well, what do you think of the news?" I ask amusedly.

"They are great news, indeed! I would have never expected that!" Her voice is so loud it's making my ear itch! "Well darling, I have to hang up. Be safe out there, okay? And tell Diantha I said hi again!"

"Wait, why are you going to hang up already?" I was expecting to be able to talk a bit more with her.

"Because I have to tell everyone! I HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE THAT YOU HAVE DIANTHA AS YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!" And just like that, she hangs up.

I take a look at the gang, obviously, they have heard everything.

"So, uh… Yeah, that just happened and stuff." Giles tries to spark a conversation again.

"It's always nice to meet such an enthusiastic fan." Diantha giggles. "Now, I want to ask something. What does bring the three of you to Kalos?"

"It's a pretty upsetting story. You know that big collection of rocks I own?" Steven has a serious expression as he talks about it.

"Of course! You would call me whenever you found something new. What's the matter?"

"Well, a few days ago several things started disappearing around Hoenn and unfortunately, my rocks were among those things."

"Oh dear, that's terrible!" She gives Steven a hug. After a couple of seconds, she separates from him. "Do you know who did it?" Diantha suddenly opens her eyes wide. "Wait, what do you mean with 'several things'? What else did the thief took away?"

"I think Giles will explain the rest of the story better than me". Steven steps back a bit, as if he was retiring himself from the conversation to give the floor to Giles.

He clears his throat before starting with his account of the story. "We are not facing a simple thief; we are dealing with a pokémon, a very intelligent one. Did you ever hear about Hoopa?"

Diantha makes a gesture that reminds me a lot of Steven as she thinks about that name. "I believe I heard that before. Isn't that the pokémon which is said to have a secret hideout where it stores all of the things it steals?"

"Exactly! That pokémon took your son's rocks away. But not only that, it also made the Prism Tower at Mauville City disappear as well as several missiles from Mossdeep City's space center." Diantha encourages Giles to continue nodding her head. "And a few islands randomly appeared around the region as well. As you can see, that pokémon had quite a lot of fun!"

"So you all came here in search of those missing items?" Diantha looks concerned.

"Exactly." Steven talks again. "Emily and I met Giles the same day I found out what that sneaky pokémon did to my rocks and he proposed us to come to Kalos so we can try to find Hoopa and convince it to return those objects to where they belong."

"I see… If I can help with something, don't hesitate to tell me!" Diantha looks back at her Gardevoir, who is reading the same book her trainer was reading not too long ago. Now she looks back at us and stares at my left wrist. "Wait, is that a mega bracelet?"

"Yes, it is! Your son gave it to me long ago."

"I see…" She smirks as if something crossed her mind right this moment. "Are you carrying with you any pokémon able to mega evolve?"

"Yeah! My Sceptile, Trevor, and my Gardevoir, Berry." What will her intentions be? Now I'm pretty intrigued!

"That's perfect! Wait a second, dear." She walks towards the couch where she was sitting and opens her bag. After a bit of rummaging, she comes back holding a pink bow with a stone embedded in the middle. "This, dear, is a Gardevoirite. You can give it to your Berry so she mega evolves just like my Gardevoir."

"Oh, so you use mega evolution too?" I ask, now understanding that face she made moments before.

"Yes! Gardevoir is my trusty partner and we have been able to achieve mega evolution for a long time now."

"Also, there's something you probably don't know about Diantha! She is this region's…!" Giles is interrupted by a somewhat stern glance from Diantha. "She is great!"

"I just had a little idea, but you can refuse if you want to. What do you think of having a battle against me? Your mega Gardevoir against mine." She has a very determined look in her eyes.

I don't know what to say. It's been so long since the last time I had a serious battle! The last one was against Steven, and there are the practice battles I had at the Ranger School. I don't think I will be able to keep up with her, but I can always try!

"Alright! We will have that battle." I concede. "But I think I should warn you that my battle skills are probably not the best. Still, I know I can trust my pokémon!"

"Of course! We are just going to do it for fun, there's nothing at stake." She smiles reassuringly, I think both Berry and I will have a very good time battling them!

"Now I don't know who I should be rooting for!" Steven scratches the back of his head.

"Me neither, it's a pretty big dilemma." Giles also seems to have a hard time deciding.

"How about you just enjoy the battle? I don't mind who you guys will root for!" I say with a smile, making clear that this is just for fun, like Diantha said.

"Exactly, we are just going to have a friendly battle. All you have to do is watch and enjoy." Now Diantha turns around and gestures her Gardevoir to follow her. "I'm going to pay for my coffee and we will head outside!"

As Diantha and her pokémon approach the bar, all I have on my mind is the fact that we are going to have this battle on the street for everyone to see. Since Diantha is a very famous woman, I'm sure lots of people will gather around us. I wonder if that will affect our pokémon, what if that makes them feel uncomfortable? I already know that Berry is not a shy pokémon; I don't think she will mind. But what about Diantha's Gardevoir? Since her trainer is so famous, I guess she is used to being surrounded by people. Aah, I know this is supposed to be fun, but I'm feeling a bit anxious all of sudden. It's almost like being a rookie all over again!

"I'm ready, let's go!" Diantha exclaims as we head to the door.

It looks like people has a radar for celebrities because as soon as we step out of the café, a small bunch of people turn around to look at us, recognizing Diantha instantly. That huge pamela can't hide her identity so easily!

"Look, it's Diantha!"

"Oh, what a great surprise! Please, sign me an autograph!"

Diantha waves to the small multitude, which is progressively getting a bit bigger "I'm sorry, but I'm not able to attend you right now. However, you can watch the battle I'm about to have with this young lady!"

People quickly turn their attention to me, but their eyes go back to Diantha almost as fast as lightning. Taking advantage of that, I grab from my bag the pokéball containing Berry and I release her, which causes uproar among the crowd.

"She has a Gardevoir too!"

"Wow, what a copycat!"

Of course, I ignore these comments. "Berry, we are going to have a battle against a Gardevoir, just like you! Now I'm going to put this in your hair, it will make you mega evolve just like Trevor, Cloudia and Alyx." She doesn't complain as I place the bow on her hair, which looks adorable on her. I take a look at Diantha to let her know that I'm ready and she nods in response.

"Alright, we won't hold back! But first, is this place fine with you?" We are right in front of the café, in the middle of the sidewalk. I hope people won't have too much trouble passing by…

"Yes, it is. Should we start already?"

"Of course! Let's mega evolve our pokémon first, let's see who has the strongest bond. Gardevoir, mega evolve!" All the people around us go crazy now that they realized that they are about to witness a match of mega evolutions.

"Berry, we can't fall behind them, mega evolve!" Now we are officially on the same level. The crowd is now a symphony of "Ooh"s and "Aah"s as the bright lights that come from the process of mega evolution envelope us. After a couple of seconds, the light disappears and the new forms of our Gardevoir are revealed.

They look like princesses! Now their hair is slightly longer and has a different shape, just like their masks, which are now longer and pointier. Their gown has also changed, now being wider; it looks like they are ready for a royal dance or something! But what catches my attention the most is that the red spike they had in the center of their chest has now divided into two, almost as if it opened. Now it's time to see how they do in battle!

"Time to start with the battle! I will concede you the first move!" Diantha looks pretty confident; it's more than probable that she has a trick up her sleeve or something.

"Thank you!" This suddenly feels a bit awkward, but I can't allow that to be evident, I don't want Berry to think that I don't trust her when the truth is entirely different! "Berry, let's start this with thunderbolt!" The horns on Berry's chest sparkle with electricity and a dazzling yellow beam is projected towards Diantha's Gardevoir, but…

"Dodge it!" I almost have no time to see where the rival Gardevoir is going, she moves very fast and very gracefully. "Shadow ball!" Again, this catches both Berry and I by surprise. We can barely do anything because the black ball of energy quickly reaches Berry, sending her a few meters back. That was a super effective hit! I knew Diantha had something in mind…

"Don't worry Berry, this battle just started and it can be ours!" With those words, she gets back up and comes levitating to where she was moments ago. "Now strike with moonblast!" Berry raises her arms, gathering an orb of pink energy between her hands. When it's big enough, she fires it towards Diantha's Gardevoir. I watch as the pokémon is impacted by the orb, but it barely does anything to her compared to what her shadow ball did to Berry. Aside from the fact that this moonblast is not a super effective move, it's more than clear than the other Gardevoir is pretty powerful… But mine has nothing to envy.

"That's not bad, not bad at all!" Diantha compliments. "Psychic!" Her Gardevoir's eyes glow light blue and at the same time, an aura of the same color surrounds Berry. Diantha nods and Gardevoir starts trashing Berry around, absolutely toying with her. What kind of pokémon is this? It's almost like if I was fighting a Champion or something of an equal caliber! "Enough!" And just like that, Gardevoir finally releases Berry.

"Berry, let's try with thunderbolt again, go!" Just like before, a ball of electricity gathers in front of her chest. In the blink of an eye, she fires a powerful beam of electricity towards her opponent, who is knocked down to the ground. We can put up a fight too!

"Gardevoir, are you alright?" Diantha asks as her pokémon goes back to standing up and nods, that makes the actress sigh in relief. "Shadow ball, again!" This time, the Gardevoir forms a barrage of black balls and she fires them at Berry, one after the other.

"Dodge them!" It takes Berry a bit to react, but she is able to get out of the way of the first shadow ball just in time. Now she just levitates and moves from one side to another, pretty much like the other Gardevoir did. Berry is a graceful princess too! "Now attack with moonblast!" An orb of pink energy forms between Berry's hands. Now she throws it straight to her rival, who seems to receive a bit more of damage than before.

"I knew Berry was strong too! Gardevoir, retaliate with thunderbolt!" Just like in Berry's case, an orb of electricity gathers in front of the horns of Gardevoir's chest. The pokémon closes her eyes just before letting the orb go. The electricity surrounds Berry for a moment before shocking her and forcing her to fall to the ground, overwhelmed by the impact of the energy.

"Berry, use psychic now!" She has a bit of a hard time getting up, that thunderbolt has left her pretty weakened, but not enough where she can't continue. She still can do this! And the look on her opponent is more than a good proof, she looks pretty upset as the blue aura surrounding her makes her unable to do her own thing. With a signal from me, Berry starts doing with her rival what she did to her before. She throws her around as Diantha watches with a calm demeanor. I know she has an idea yet again! "Enough!" Berry drops Gardevoir abruptly, the later complains as she hits the ground. Now Diantha's Gardevoir is weakened too!

"Moonblast!" But that doesn't mean that she can't fire powerful attacks. As she lifts her arms, a ball of pink energy gathers in between her hands. Now Gardevoir throws at Berry her attack, which sends my pokémon to the ground. Despite not being too effective, it looks like it has done a decent amount of damage.

"Berry, let's go with another thunderbolt!" With difficulty, Berry gets up and gets ready to fire her attack as, again, an orb of yellow electricity forms in front of the red horns in her chest. As she fires it, it looks like Diantha decides to make her Gardevoir get a move as well.

"Use thunderbolt too!" Quickly, Gardevoir attends to her trainer's command and fires a ball of electricity as well, which collides with the one thrown by Berry. I watch how Gardevoir's attack overpowers Berry's and goes straight to my pokémon. A small cloud of dust raises and as soon as it's gone, I discover that Berry has fainted. I should have known that the battle would end with us being defeated. Still, I know both Berry and I had lots of fun! "You did a great job, Berry, now it's time to rest." I say as I withdraw her into her pokéball.

The people watching us can be heard cheering fervently, since the trainer they were rooting for has won the match. "That was a very entertaining battle!" Diantha approaches me with her hand extended.

Of course, I reciprocate the handshake. "I can say the same! It has been so long since the last time I had such a fun battle…" And that was when I battled Steven.

"I'm very happy you accepted to battle with us. Now, if you will allow me, I have something else to tell you…" Diantha looks from side to side, as if she didn't want the other people to hear what she is about to say. "You know, actually my son and I have something else in common aside from being related. We are both the Champions of our regions!"

I open my eyes wide as I try to process what I just heard. I can't avoid looking at Steven, silently asking for an explanation. He just looks at me, mildly amused. Giles is not surprised at all, so he knew all along! Well of course he knew, why wouldn't he know who the Champion of his region is?

"Well, you know, that is not really a surprise." I'm not lying either, I figured she is a strong trainer. "I could tell from the way your pokémon battles!"

"Yes, but it's not only because of that. It's also because both I and my Gardevoir know each other very well. I can feel the same with you and Berry too! The way you treated her as we were battling says a lot." Diantha smiles warmly, but suddenly she seems to realize something. "Oh dear, I just remembered! I have to be at Jaune Plaza in half an hour for a photoshot!"

"Really? I wanted you to spend more time with us." Steven approaches his mother to give her a hug.

"I know Steven; I want to be with you people for a bit more! But I can't miss that, my manager would be very angry if I did." Diantha answers as she returns the hug. After a bit, she walks away from Steven and approaches me. "I will say this again, it was great battling you. I hope we meet each other soon." This time she hugs me too. For some reason this catches me off guard, I really should get used to the idea that this widely recognized actress is my mother-in-law!

"Same here, I had lots of fun and you are also a very pleasant person. If your obligations don't keep you too busy, will you drop by some day to visit us?" I ask.

"Of course! I'll call Steven as soon as I'm available." Diantha says with a smile as she walks towards Giles. "I know we didn't talk too much, but you look like a great person. Please, take good care of my son and daughter-in-law!"

"No worries Madame, I sure will!" Giles looks flattered after receiving such a compliment from Diantha, which is more than understandable.

"Okay, now I have to leave. Take care and also, Steven, give your dad greetings from me!" Diantha waves goodbye at us.

"I will, mother. Please take care as well!" Steven answers waving goodbye too. We all wave goodbye to Diantha as she walks further from us and yes, she is still looking at us. She is also saying goodbye to the multiple fans who gathered to watch our battle.

This has been pretty entertaining for our penultimate day on Lumiose City!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Moving on to the next step**

After a few days here, we are now spending our last hours on Lumiose City. Right now we are on a taxi that is about to reach the South Boulevard, Giles wanted to take us there before we head to Laverre City. For that, we must take another taxi that will leave us in front of the gate to Route 14. This makes me think of that time that enthusiastic driver took us to Route 5! That's something I will remember very well from our days on Lumiose, without a doubt.

And speaking of taxis, we have just arrived to our destination. The car has stopped in front of a somewhat tall building with lots of windows. A set of stairs leads into the door and there's a gate in front of the building, but there's no door. Instead, an entrance is marked with two pokéball statues, one at each side. This looks like an important building!

"That will be 1,200 pokédollars, s'il vous plait!" The driver says in a cheerful tone. Giles hands over the money to him and we step out of the taxi, not without thanking the cabbie first.

As the taxi leaves, Giles approaches a bit more the building we are in front of. "See this? This is where the region's professor does his research." He explains as he gestures towards the construction.

It looks so different from Professor Birch's lab! While his is a small building located in an equally small town, this lab is huge and it's right in the most important city of the Kalos region. Things can change so much from one place to another!

"Do you think we could make a small visit? Now I'm curious about what his area of expertise is." Steven looks up and down at the building.

"Yes, although we can only be there for a little bit, I want to reach Laverre before it gets any darker."

Suddenly, I feel the urge to go to the Pokémon Center just across the street. I want to make a video call to my parents; I bet they will be very surprised! After yesterday's call, I wanted to be able to talk to them for a bit more, but they were so excited about the news they received that they couldn't wait to go tell everyone. I wonder how many people on Oldale Town know now who my mother-in-law is…

"Guys, I have to go to the Pokémon Center now. I will be back soon!"

"Why? Your pokémon are all fine and dandy!" Giles exclaims.

"Yes, but I want to do something else. I just want to call my parents to see how they are doing!" I answer unintentionally tilting my head to the side, as if that could help me get my way.

"Alright, but don't make that too long, we should be on Laverre City before night falls!"

"Excuse me Giles but, why are you so eager to reach Laverre City before it gets too dark?" Steven asks with curiosity.

"Well… Route 14 can be pretty scary at night, especially because of one particular building there. It's said to be a haunted house and you know, if we happen to be still on Route 14 in the middle of the night, we won't have any other choice than staying there!"

"I see, but that doesn't mean the house is actually haunted." Steven makes that thinking pose so typical of him. "If there's no other place to stay the night, maybe it won't be that bad of an alternative."

"I know, but we rather not take risks going there. Who knows what we could find there?" Giles seems to be lost on his own thoughts."It better not be a Litwick… Anything but a Litwick!"

"Well… I will go to the Pokémon Center. I'll be back in a bit, okay?" I say as I stop at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for a couple of cars to pass by.

"Fine, take care!" Steven answers as Giles keeps rambling about Litwick and how mean and naughty they are.

I walk fast and straight to the door of the Pokémon Center, it's literally in front of us. I only have to cross the road and I'm already at the door. As I enter, I eye the cabins where the calls are made; they are slightly different from the ones in the Pokémon Centers in Hoenn. I sit down on the stool and I put my bag next to it, but I keep the basket with the egg on my lap, holding it tight with one hand as I dial my mom's number with the other. Now I wait for her to answer.

I look idly around me, when suddenly I see from the corner of my eye how the screen changes.

"Hi!" Mom greets cheerfully.

"Hi mom! How are you doing?"

"I'm doing great, especially since I discovered that yesterday!" A huge grin appears on her face.

"I can only imagine!" I laugh remembering the way she reacted to Diantha's call, just like in those TV programs! "By the way, how is dad doing?"

"I'm doing great too!" My dad answers as he appears on the screen as well, sitting besides mom. "How are you doing?"

"Very well! I actually wanted to call to say that Steven, Giles and I are about to leave Lumiose City, we are heading to Laverre City to see if we can discover something else there."

"Oh, that sounds great! I heard Laverre is very beautiful too." Dad marvels as his eyes sparkle.

"Don't forget to take pictures here too! By the way, have you caught any pokémon already?" Mom asks with a smile.

"Yes! A few days ago I got this little guy here. Wait a second." I reach for my bag and grab Espurr's pokéball. I discreetly throw it to the floor, avoiding making too much of a fuss. Once he is out, Espurr stares at me blankly. I hold him in my arms and put him in front of the camera so my parents can see the little guy… But this puts my efforts of trying to be as silent as possible to waste.

"WHAT KIND OF POKÉMON IS THAT?" All I can see now is dad's left eye; he is staring into the camera, trying to take a very close look at the pokémon.

"It's an Espurr, a pokémon native to this region." I inform as my parents continue to fawn over him. Espurr is just sitting there, staring back at the screen without doing anything else.

"It's so adorable! Does he have a nickname?" Mom asks with her face very close to the camera as well.

"No, for some reason I can't think of anything! It's pretty odd." I answer while looking down at Espurr, who suddenly smiles and makes some cute little sounds, which makes my parents go even crazier.

"CAN WE KEEP IT?" Dad begs as a six years old who just found a Zigzagoon.

"We can take good care of him!" Mom adds making one of these faces that say "You will do what I say because you won't resist this look!"

I feel bad about letting Espurr go, I wanted him to spend more time with me and my pokémon, but my parents really like him and I can't say no! Plus, I know they will treat him well, they are surprisingly good at taking care of pokémon.

"Okay, I'll send him your way!" I hold Espurr so he is facing me now and pet his head. "Listen Espurr, I'm going to send you over to my parent's house, they will take very good care of you! We will see each other again as soon as possible." The small pokémon purrs in response.

Again, I reach for his pokéball and I withdraw Espurr into it. Now I place the device in the dent intended for the transfer of pokéballs. In the bat of an eye, Espurr's pokéball is now at my house, in Hoenn.

"Here he is!" Mom exclaims happily while showing me Espurr's pokéball.

"Thank you for trusting us to take care of Espurr!" Dad is also looking pretty gleeful.

"Of course! I know he will be very content here." Suddenly, I remember that Giles and Steven are waiting for me; we have to visit the professor's laboratory! "Mom, dad, I have to leave now. Giles and Steven are waiting for me!"

"No worries, we understand. You guys have to go to Laverre City a…"

"Oh, I almost forgot! I also got this." I interrupt dad showing them the basket, I raise the cloth a bit so they can take a look at the egg.

"Oh, it's an egg! Where did you get that?" Dad is flabbergasted at the sight of it.

"A breeder trusted us to raise it; it actually doesn't have an owner right now. All of us are taking care of it!"

"That's just wonderful! So will you guys kinda wait to see who of you the pokémon likes more once it's born?" Mom asks resting her face on her hand.

"Exactly! That's how we are going to do it." I instinctively look back at the door, knowing that they are waiting for me just across the road. "Well, now I have to leave. Take care and be nice to Espurr!"

"No worries, we will!" Mom and dad say at the same time as they wave goodbye.

I wave goodbye too just before finishing the call. I pick up my stuff and I head to the door, not without politely saying goodbye to Nurse Joy. I can already see them; Giles is sitting in one of the steps of the lab's stair while Steven is standing up next to him, with his hands on his pockets. Since there are no cars around right now, I don't have to wait to cross the road. It doesn't take me too long to get to the other side of it; the crosswalk is not too long.

"Awesome, that didn't take as long as I thought! We still can make it to Laverre City before it gets too dark. Now, time to visit the lab!" Giles exclaims as he gets up and starts walking up the stairs, approaching the door to the lab.

Both Steven and I walk behind him. Giles holds the door open and allows us to go through it first before he does.

Remember when I said how different this lab looked compared to the one in Hoenn? The outside is not the only big difference; the inside is also a huge deviation from that small building! This floor is only the reception; the actual lab must be on another floor since a big elevator dominates this room. The sky blue walls are decorated with paintings depicting different pokémon and several white couches are placed on the right side of the room. As I said, this is entirely different from Birch's lab!

"Bienvenu!" A blonde woman leaves her spot behind a wooden desk. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, we wanted to make a visit to the professor's lab, if that's possible." Giles requests politely.

"I'm sorry, but at this moment professor Sycamore is busy and can't attend visits, you will have to come here later or even better, tomorrow. He doesn't have anything scheduled." The receptionist makes a courteous gesture to finish her sentence and now she goes back to her desk.

"Well, that's a pity. It would have been so nice!" Giles has his arms crossed. "I guess it's time to go somewhere else."

Suddenly, as we start walking towards the door, the elevator opens behind us. A tall man on his early forties walks out of it. He is wearing a navy blue shirt, a long lab coat, tight black jeans and brown moccasins. I bet he is the professor!

"Hello! Are you people here as visitors?" The man has a very polite demeanor.

"Ooh, it's the professor!" Giles turns around all of sudden and reaches him in two steps. "Yes, but we were leaving since we have been told that you were busy."

"Unfortunately, that's true. I see my secretary already informed you. However, tomorrow I'm free and I wouldn't mind giving a tour through the lab!" The professor offers with a smile.

"I'm sorry, but tomorrow we won't be here." Giles answers with hesitation, as if he didn't really want to say that.

"That's fine, you can always come back! Now if you can excuse me, I must go back to work. Au revoir!" The professor waves goodbye and he opens a door near the elevator, which now he closes.

After that very short exchange with the region's professor, we finally exit the building. I would have wanted to talk with the professor and learn more about the things they research in this lab!

"Giles, can we come back to Lumiose some other day?" Steven asks as we walk down the street.

"It depends on how everything goes. If we don't have too much trouble with Hoopa, of course we could pay a visit! By the way, there's another place I want to take you guys to before we leave. I know Steven will love it." Giles finishes his sentence with a close-lipped smile. I think I can guess what it is.

It's a rock store. I'm telling you it's a rock store!

"I'm impatient to find out what that might be." Steven is quite eager now, is he also expecting a rock store? Because I'm sure he does!

"Luckily for you, that won't take too long! That place is on Vernal Avenue and we only have to walk a bit more to reach it." Giles smiles with confidence.

As we keep walking further, I notice how lots of window displays dominate the street. "Is this Vernal Avenue already?" I ask glancing at the numerous displays.

"Exactly! And look, that store I was talking about is just at the end of this sidewalk." Giles points at sign standing a bit far, I can't make out what's in there.

"This wait is sure killing me!" Steven jokes as he looks around him, with all those stores that populate this avenue.

"Don't let the wait kill you, you'll regret that once we reach that place!" Giles jokes back with a somehow smug expression; he really knows what he's doing!

The sign belonging to the shop can be seen more clearly and, exactly how I suspected, it's a stone shop. Or at least that's what the illustration of a Fire Stone seems to imply. I can't help but look at Steven to see if he has realized already. Judging by his surprised expression, I would say that he really did!

"Is this a joke?" He says barely containing a smile. His eyes are now lighting up, just like a kid who has just spotted a toy store.

"I said you would like it!" Giles laughs triumphantly. "As you can see, this is not a joke. Now, let's go inside!" His expression now turns a bit stern. "But remember, don't entertain yourself too much because it's getting darker and… Wait!"

Steven didn't feel like waiting for us; he just entered the shop with a slight sprint. The shopkeeper looks at him amusedly as he begins to look through the various displays. Like I said, he acts just like a kid in a toy store! I find that adorable.

We enter the store as well; it's full of all kinds of rocks and gemstones one could possibly imagine. I think I don't need to say this, but Steven feels like home here.

"What a great piece of citrine! The colors are perfect. So are the colors in these erythrite crystals! And I can't believe the perfect shape of this Dawn stone!" Steven can't stop rambling out loud as he takes a look at the stones on display. He doesn't even seem to notice us now that we are inside the shop!

"So, did you like this little surprise?" Giles says standing by Steven's side, scaring him a bit.

"Of course I did! But this doesn't make up for all the stones I lost, no sir! I still have to get them back, that nasty little thief can't get away with it." Steven doesn't take his eye off of the rocks.

"I understand but, let me remind you that we aren't dealing with a 'nasty little thief'." Giles adjusts his glasses.

"I know, but that's just the way I see it!"

"Guys, what if we just don't argue about what Hoopa is or what it isn't?" I blurt all of sudden, I don't know why. "I mean, didn't we come here to see the rocks?"

"Wowowowowo!" Giles raises his hands in a defensive way, but he abandons that gesture as soon as he sees my surprised expression. "I was just kidding."

"That was unexpected." Steven says still observing the various rocks and stones, although now he has changed his mind and walks towards the counter to address the shop assistant. "I'm interested in a few of the rocks, may I get them?"

"Of course! Wait a second." The clerk says as she reaches for a key inside a drawer. Now they stop in front of one of the displays. "Which ones would you want?"

"That piece of dolomite, that glaucophane, that opal up here, this piece of obsidian… And this wavellite, please!" Steven is really enthused!

"Something else?" The shop assistant asks with an entertained expression.

"No, nothing else, that's all I wanted." Steven says politely as the woman gets all of the rocks.

Now we head to the counter, where the store clerk carefully packs all of the stones, each one of them inside a very fancy looking case. She now gets a white paper bag with the logo of the shop and puts the cases inside of it.

"That will be 40,000 pokédollars, please!"

Steven quietly grabs his wallet and gets several bills out of it, which he hands to the saleswoman. She tries to contain a grin as she puts all the money inside the cash register. "That was quite a great purchase." She smiles. "I hope to see you again!"

"Who knows, now that I discovered this place, I might come here again someday!" Steven exclaims as he gets a hold of the bag containing his newly acquired rocks.

We leave the store as the clerk mutters something about a "more than deserved promotion". Now that we are on the street again, I hold Steven's arms and I kiss his cheek.

"What was that for?" He pretends to be surprised.

"I just thought you were acting so cute on the store and I could help it!" I giggle as he smiles in response.

"I'm sorry to interrupt this very special moment you two, but LOOK HOW DARK IT GOT!" Most of the people walking past us turn their heads to look at Giles, who is frowning and looking at the dark sky with an almost disapproving face. "How did night fall so fast? We will have to stay the in that damn house, I tell you!"

"Don't worry Giles; it's not that dark yet. We still can make it to Laverre City!" Steven attempts to encourage him.

"I hope you're right…" Now Giles stops in his tracks all of sudden. "It's a taxi! TAXI!" He raises his arm trying to make the driver notice us.

The taxi keeps moving towards us and luckily, it looks like the cabbie noticed Giles, because it's slowing down. We walk towards the vehicle as the driver rolls down the window. "Do you need to go somewhere?"

"Yes! Can you take us to the gate to Route 14, please?" Giles asks leaning on the car.

"Of course! Let me put your luggage on the trunk first."

The cabbie steps out of the car and opens the trunk. With our help, he places all of the suitcases on it. Now he closes the trunk and returns to his spot behind the wheel while we open the doors to the vehicle and we sit down. As the driver announces our destination, the car finally starts moving.

Leaving Lumiose is really a pity, there are so many things we haven't seen yet! Although I understand this isn't the goal of our journey, we came here to do more important things than just walking around the region. I wonder how long it will take until we finally get to do what we came to do and also, will it really be so hard to convince Hoopa to do what it must? Who knows, it might take us more than a single encounter. And who knows when or how we will find it… I would love to find out soon!


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: An unexpected encounter**

"Well, I knew this would happen!" Giles sighs with his arms crossed.

We are walking through Route 14 with the dark, starry sky just above us. It took us way more time to get there than we thought, since we got caught in an unexpected traffic jam. We spent about half an hour there, waiting for the other cars to keep going on. The driver was already desperate, muttering words in Kalosian that didn't sound nice at all. It turns out that the cause of the jam was a stubborn driver who wanted to change the tires himself, on the middle of the road. Luckily, somebody else came and did it for him, finally allowing all of the cars to keep driving to their respective destinations.

"How far are we from that mysterious house?" Steven asks in a low tone, just in case we disturb the wild pokémon on the area.

"We still have to walk quite a bit and mind you, there's a swampy area ahead. You guys better have a pokémon able to surf!"

"I have my Milotic, Venus. Will that work for the three of us?" I ask.

"Yes, that should be enough." Giles answers while nodding his head.

Walking through the path has gotten difficult all of sudden, a bunch of tall trees growing at either side of the track are obscuring the way even more.

"We are going to need her…" Giles reaches for a pokéball in his pocket and releases his Ampharos from it. "Ampharos, please use flash to help us see better!"

Attending to her trainer's request, she emits a bright light by illuminating the ball on the end of her tail. Now the visibility is much better! Although the place still feels a bit intimidating… The only thing that can be heard is the wind rustling the leaves on the trees every now and then. There's no one here except for us, now I can see why Giles didn't want to be here at night!

We are starting to see a clearer area ahead of us, although it's not like darkness is a big problem since we have Ampharos with us! Still, the darkness of this place is kinda eerie, maybe the fact that there's an abandoned house rumored to be haunted near us has something to do. Luckily, we don't have to worry about a thing, our pokémon are with us and we will help each other in case something or someone attacks us!

"Do you hear that?" Giles stops all of sudden. "We are close to the swamp and it looks like the pokémon are active now!"

"It's not that late yet, maybe some of them don't feel tired. Plus, if we don't bother them, I doubt they will be a problem for us." Steven murmurs as we resume our walk.

Some grass is visible at the end of the aisle formed by the rows of trees; it also gets a bit lighter around that point. We are not too far away from that area! Giles's Ampharos keeps walking in front of us, guiding us through the poorly illuminated path, which is now way more visible thanks to her flash. I would say this is quite the experience, but I'm actually used to walk through this kind of places at night. So many memories from my journey as a trainer trying to get all the badges!

After walking a bit more, we are finally out of the intimidating aisle formed by these boggy trees. The landscape is now considerably different: swampy waters full of dead logs are all around the route now, the smell of the air has also changed and it's a bit nauseating, but I guess we will be able to stand it. We have a place to reach, after all!

Although, as soon as we approach the swamp, we discover the water is actually not too deep. At least is not in most of the area.

"So… What do you think, will we need Venus or not?" I say taking a look at the dark blue waters. The water is so muddy that nothing seems to be reflected on it!

"I think we should try walking through it and, if it gets too difficult, then you can send out Venus." Steven answers, also taking a careful look at the marsh in front of us.

"Exactly! But, in my eyes, I believe this pokémon here has already done her job. Thank you so much, Ampharos!" Giles says as he withdraws the Electric type into her pokéball. Now he ventures into the swamp and we start following him.

Indeed, walking through this area is a bit hard. And you must be careful not to trip with the dead logs scattered all around the swamp. There's also even more trees, but they don't obscure the way this time. At least that will help us avoid those logs! Although I'm also worried about the pokémon that could be inside the water right now, what if we are disturbing them?

And that's exactly what the sound of rippling water is making me think, it's like if something near us was moving. I'm sure it's an annoyed pokémon!

"I think we are disturbing the pokémon here. How far are we from the house?" I ask Giles as I try to approach him. These waters remind me a lot of Hoenn's Route 19; just change the muddy water with extremely tall grass!

"We still have quite a bit of a way to go, soon we will reach a patch of firm ground, but we will have to return to the water shortly after, we won't stop walking through the swamp literally until we reach the house." Giles is also having a bit of a hard time with all these fallen logs in the way. "Also, don't worry about the pokémon; they are mostly peaceful and inoffensive on this area!"

"You know this region very well, so I know we can trust you!" I say while dodging a huge log.

"Yes, I don't think a guide such as good as him would lie to us!" Steven exclaims.

"You flatter me, Mr. Stone!" Giles forces a high pitched voice, pretending to sound like a girl. I don't know how to react to that, but I can't help but laugh.

"Mr. Stone is my father and as long as I know, I'm not my father!" Steven jokes in response. "I better don't trip now that I carry this…" Steven mutters to himself, he is now the one carrying with him the basket containing the egg.

Suddenly, I hear the water ripple again. "Guys, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Giles asks without stopping his steps.

"I heard the water ripple again just now!" I answer while walking slowly, looking around me.

"That was probably caused by us so, don't worry Emily!" Steven sounds very confident. Maybe he is right, after all!

But the rippling sound returns, this time louder than before. This time, instead of saying anything, I quickly look in the direction where the sound came from and there it is: a purplish pokémon with some pretty unusual green eyes looking at me, its horns move as it slowly approaches me. This pokémon seems to have a friendly attitude; I doubt it's going to attack us! "Wait a moment guys!" I exclaim as I approach the purple pokémon, who is still moving in my direction.

Now that I have it closer, I can take an even better look: its body seems to be made of goo! It kinda reminds me of Gulpin and Swalot, only that the body of these pokémon has a more solid look to it. I think it's time to grab the Pokédex so I can find out what the name of this species is!

" _Sliggoo, the Soft Tissue Pokémon._ _Its four horns are a high-performance radar system. It uses them to sense sounds and smells, rather than using ears or a nose"_

"Will you catch it or what?" Giles says loudly since he and Steven are a few steps ahead of me and Sliggoo.

"Huh…" I look back at the cute pokémon. For some reason, she seems to like me. Suddenly, she opens her mouth in what I guess it's a smile. There's some goo dripping from her lower jaw and that makes her expression a bit odd… but still really cute. "Would you like to join my team?" I crouch in front of the Sliggoo as she lets out several happy cries. That sounds like a yes! "Great! Just wait a second."

I stand up again and I reach for one of the empty Super Balls that I carry inside my ball. I show Sliggoo the spherical device and she doesn't seem to mind. I aim the Super Ball at her and I throw it, sucking the purple and green pokémon into it. The device rocks one, two and three times and a clicking sound can be heard, signifying that this adorable new pokémon has joined my team. Awesome, another Kalos pokémon for me! But this time, she won't be sent to Hoenn.

"That was an awesome catch!" Steven compliments as I walk towards them. "Did you think of a nickname this time?"

"Hmm…" I ponder as I catch up to them and we start walking again. "What about Lumi? I thought of it all of sudden! It sounds cute to me."

"Cute and more than fitting, you have caught her in a route near Lumiose City!" Giles observes with a smile. I haven't thought about that!

"That's true!" The coincidence makes me laugh, I can't help it!

We are very close to firm ground but, as Giles said, the patch of ground is very small and it's only a couple of steps before we have to go back to walk through the swamp. Luckily, it looks like the water ahead of us is not as crowded with logs as it has been until now. Indeed, steeping on the ground feels great after walking with difficulty through the marsh, but sadly this march through the swamp starts again very soon.

Surprisingly, I notice how my legs have grown used to walking through the boggy terrain, now it's not so hard to walk here. Steven and Giles seem to be experiencing the same, which means that luckily we will make it to the abandoned house a bit faster than we thought! Speaking of the house, it can be seen already.

"This is going to be pretty interesting to say the least…" Giles mutters taking a look at the building which silhouette gets bigger and bigger the more we walk towards it.

It looks like it used to be home to a wealthy family. In that sense it sorta reminds me of the Shabboneau Castle, although both places are very different. The mansion on this route is evidently abandoned, there's no one caring for the mansion… Or at least that's what I would think, unless the rumors are true and the ghosts are the ones maintaining the house.

From there, it's more than obvious that the façade hasn't been painted for decades and the rooftop has such a look that it makes me think that it could fall down at any moment. To be honest, I'm starting to feel uneasy to stay the night here… Although I don't think there will be any incident inside this old mansion. Who knows, maybe it looks way better indoors than it does on the outside!

The huge windows seem to be staring at us menacingly; they look all dusty and dirty. This must mean that we won't be able to see the outside, which sounds pretty unsettling to me, at least… I know I would feel more comfortable if I could see what's outside. Anyway, we only have to stay here for one night and then we will move on to Laverre City, where I'm sure everything will be nice and clean and there won't be any tales of haunted houses. At least, that's what I hope! Ah, it seems that I left the reputation of this mansion get me!

"Here we are, at last! Although I'm not so sure if saying 'at last' is correct…" Giles scratches the back of his head, eyeing the big and imposing door of the house.

"It's just an old house." Steven is trying to make Giles feel better, although I can notice an uneasy look in his eyes.

"Steven is right, there's nothing to worry about!" I try to sound as convincing as possible.

I will be honest, I'm not really sure about how should I feel. It only looks like a very old and unkempt mansion but at the same time, I can't help but think about the possibility of the rumors being true. What's more, I have a strange feeling, like if somebody was inside the house right now… Maybe I'm thinking too much, but the fact that the windows look even worse now that we are literally at the door of the mansion doesn't help. Okay, I will try to think about something else to avoid thinking about the reputation of this place. I can think of my newest pokémon, for example!

"Here we go!" Giles exclaims as he opens the door, which causes a terribly loud creaking sound.

The inside doesn't look any better. The first thing we see is a very old wooden staircase leading to a huge wood door with iron details. The paint is chipped and the wallpaper is soiled, recognizing the pattern on it is impossible. A very dim light coming from an old chandelier is the only light source of the room. There are also two doors, one at each side of the stairs. Trying to open either one of them doesn't sound like a very clever idea, but if we are going to stay the night in this house, we must look around to see where the bedrooms are… if there's any. What if all the important furniture is gone?

"Where should we look first?" Giles asks with a nervous expression.

"I say this door here," Steven says pointing to the right door "might be the one where the bedrooms are located."

"In my humble opinion, the rooms are probably behind that other door up here." Giles looks at the enormous door that pretty much dominates the place with its imposing appearance.

"I guess I should say that the bedrooms are behind the door on the left!" I try to contain a yawn, it's late and I'm starting to feel sleepy.

"I think we should look first on the place Steven suggested, then we go upstairs and after that, we go to the left door as Emily said… If we don't find any bedrooms before that, that is." Giles gestures us to walk behind him.

Again, this door makes an awful sound. Giles waits for Steven and me to walk into the hallway to close the door behind him, again causing that creepy squeaky sound. The corridor is wide enough to allow us to walk next to each other. The carpet covering the floors is so worn-out that it looks pink instead of the red color it must have had many years ago. Here the paint of the walls is also chipped and part of the wallpaper seems to have been torn out only recently. This doesn't look good at all…

"Let's see what we have in there…" Steven murmurs opening one of the doors, but the room is completely empty save for a couple of cardboard boxes covered in dust.

We walk a bit more until we reach another door. This time I'm the one opening and again, it's not what we were looking for… Although I'm pretty sure we will need to come to this room during the night. It's a small bathroom, although it's pretty dirty, like you would expect from a house like this one. I guess we will have to deal with it!

It's Giles's turn to open the next door; this one is right in front the one I just opened. As Giles opens it, the door reveals a pretty big kitchen. We venture into it out of curiosity, the walls and floors look pretty much like they do in what we have seen of this mansion so far, only that the floor is not as dusty as the parquet on the hall.

An enormous fridge stands in the back of the room with several wood counters around it. Right next to one of the counters, there's an old oven. It seems to be green, but it's hard to tell with the darkness of the room, although there's something that just caught my attention. "What's that…?" I mumble as I approach the table in the middle of the room. A half-eaten donut is just sitting there, as if somebody has been eating on this room just recently. I tell Giles and Steven to come here.

"What's the matter?" Steven approaches me as he barely manages to contain a yawn, he is tired too.

"This house is supposed to be abandoned, then… Who did this?" I hold the half donut in front of me. "It's clear this isn't old, somebody has been eating here recently!"

"It's true," Giles concedes "now I will start to think that there are actual ghosts in this house… Although maybe it's just that somebody uses this old house as a secret hideout."

"Maybe that's the case!" Steven exclaims. "At least, I hope that IS the case."

"Probably a little kid came here to play and left the donut on the kitchen as soon as they realized it was getting late." I theorize as I put the half-eaten sweet exactly where I grabbed it from.

Now we exit the kitchen with intention to inspect the last door left in this corridor, I'm pretty sure the other two have even more rooms to explore! For now, we have to check out the last one here although, seeing as how none of the rooms are one, I don't expect the next room to be a bedroom. But still, it could be that down there they had a guest room and the other ones are either on the first floor or the other halfway, the one at the other side of the stairs.

I think I just heard something move up there, but I ignore the thought since I'm pretty sure it's just on my mind. Aside of that, I don't want to sound like somebody who can be scared easily!

"Okay, show us what you have!" Giles exclaims all while opening the door, which is slightly bigger than the other ones.

As I thought, what we come across is not a bedroom, but a rather big reading room. The walls are covered in libraries and there are a couple of armchairs in the middle of the room. There's a small table between them, with a pretty old looking lamp on top of it. There's nothing else to see here, so Giles closes the door.

"I guess it's time to go upstairs…" Steven mumbles as we walk towards the door at the end of the aisle.

"No worries, I'm pretty sure the bedrooms will be there and then we will finally be able to rest!" Giles beams with enthusiasm.

Walking through these corridors is probably one of the most exciting things I ever did, strange as it may seem. Not everyone can say that they have spent the night in an abandoned mansion! Although many people use abandoned houses as their secret bases, so I don't think I should brag too much… With some luck, the beds and rooms won't be too untidy and we will be able to sleep without fearing an allergy attack or something remotely similar.

"Get ready for the squeak!" Giles jokes as he opens the door. Just as he said, that annoying sound attacks our ears again.

Now we must walk up these old stairs, which doesn't make me feel too confident… The wood is chipped and it looks like it could break the moment someone starts walking up the staircase. I guess that's what years and years of lack of maintenance can do to a set of stairs… Although we can't spend the whole night standing down there just because the stairs don't look safe, I'm sure the appearances are deceiving on this one!

The first to start climbing the staircase is Steven, nothing happens. I expected a creaking sound of some sort but, as I thought (or as I wanted to think), these stairs are actually safe to walk through! Both Giles and I join Steven, now it's the three of us walking up the stairs. The enormous door looks scarier now that we are closer to it and I think that some of the details can be made out: they seem to represent pokémon of some sort. One of them has a very curious shape; it looks just like a "Y". The other has a very graceful figure, it's a deer-like creature with some really thin horns from which something seems to protrude. They look really interesting, I wonder if these pokémon can still be seen nowadays!

And speaking of the details of the door, now we are finally in front of it! Steven sighs just before opening the door, but I think not even all of the sighs in the world could have prepared us for what we are seeing right now.

A small creature with big green eyes is giving us an extremely shocked look. Its pupils get smaller and suddenly…

"IT'S HOOPA!" Giles exclaims as if he just had made the discovery of the century.

"HOOPA?" Steven and I exclaim at the same time.

"I'M SCARED!" Hoopa screams with a shaky voice.

"So you are the one who took away my rocks, huh? Not only my rocks, but also the Prism Tower and those missiles! Do you know in which mess the Hoenn region is because of you?" Steven approaches Hoopa talking in a loud tone, which only makes the creature be even more scared.

"I… I…" Hoopa is trying to justify itself, but without success.

"Leave him alone! Don't you see he is scared?" I scold Steven grabbing his wrist to keep him from getting closer to Hoopa. I know he has no bad intentions, but I don't want the poor pokémon to keep getting this overwhelmed.

What I'm going to do is get my Pokédex for the second time on the night to see if it has any data regarding it, although if it does, I doubt it's anything new and unknown to us.

" _It is said to be able to seize anything it desires with its six rings and six huge arms. With its powers sealed, it is transformed into a much smaller form."_

Nothing new, like I suspected. As it's obvious, Hoopa has his power sealed right now. I'm sure that this encounter would have played differently if this pokémon was on its true form…

"D-did that red thing talk just now?" Hoopa says timidly and surprisingly, it's getting a bit closer to me.

"Yes, it did! It's called a Pokédex and it has stuff about all the pokémon on the world." I explain with a kind expression, showing the device to the creature so it can take a better look at it.

Hoopa doesn't seem to trust coming near the Pokédex, it just stares at the machine from a safe distance, as if it was afraid that something would happen if it got too close. Now it looks back at me, probably wondering if I have something to do with the functioning of the Pokédex. I just smile in response, trying to let Hoopa know that I can be trusted. I think Steven and Giles should do something about that to…

"You use those hoops you carry on your horns to steal things from others, then?" Steven is calmer, but he still sounds somewhat hostile. I glare in his direction to make him know that he should tone it down.

"Yes… Why do you want to know?" Hoopa shrinks back as it talks, it clearly feels intimidated.

"Because we need you to use those rings to put what you stole from Hoenn where it belongs." Giles says calmly as he slowly approaches the pokémon, but that still makes Hoopa flinch.

"That is, if you are the one who took away these things… You know, because it's you, right?" Steven sounds a lot friendlier now.

Hoopa only nods in response. I try to approach it but I know that if I do, Hoopa will get scared and that's not in our interests, we need to get these things back. The pokémon looks at me with a slightly distrustful expression, not daring to approach me more.

"Hoopa, you don't need to give us those things right now if you don't want to." I say softly, getting myself a disapproving look from Steven and a surprised exclamation from Giles. "You can do that any other day, when you feel like doing so! What do you say?"

Hoopa opens his eyes wide in shock. "Is… Is this a trap?"

"No! We won't force you to give us these things right this moment; you can take your time. Stressing you needlessly is the last thing we want to do. Giles? Steven?" I turn around expecting them to agree with me, I think the wellbeing of this pokémon is more important!

"Are you… are you serious?" Steven manages to stutter.

"Wow, I sure didn't see that coming!" Giles exclaims with a chuckle.

"There's nothing bad about it! This pokémon deserves to be left alone; didn't you see how scared it was? Am I right Hoo… Hoopa?" When I look back at where the mysterious pokémon was just a few seconds ago, I discover it's gone.

"That tricky little thief…" Steven mutters shuffling his feet.

"It left as suddenly as it appeared, as I can see!" Giles shrugs a bit, as if he didn't give much importance to it.

"I guess now we should go back to looking for those bedrooms." I suggest staring into the abyss, still processing everything.

"Yeah, we should." Steven agrees as we begin walking towards one of the doors.

So, we came across an extremely rare pokémon all of sudden and we scared said pokémon out of its mind and now, it turns out the creature has vanished just like that! Although we must keep in mind that we are talking about Hoopa, a pokémon with more tricks up its sleeve than anyone could imagine. Still, the experience has been… pretty interesting.

And the fact that we finally came across a bedroom is pretty interesting too. "We finally found a place to sleep on!" Steven exclaims triumphantly as he opens the door more.

"Yeah, we definitely needed that!" Giles exclaims taking a look at the rather huge room, this must have been the master suite in the past if the luxurious but worn out furniture is anything to go by.

As for me, I think sleeping will be somewhat hard after that extraordinary encounter. Now I'm making myself all sorts of questions: why was Hoopa so scared? Did it have any bad experiences with humans in the past? Or was it simply upset that we found its hideout? No matter what the answers to these questions are, I'm already looking forward to see Hoopa again. I want to learn more and more of that mysterious pokémon!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Welcome to Laverre**

The night at the creepy old house went surprisingly well. There were no strange noises or anything that could deprive us from our sleep although, as it's obvious, the furniture in the rooms was really old and the bed was somewhat uncomfortable. Despite that, we managed to get a more than decent sleep.

Although it actually took me quite a bit of time to fall asleep, I couldn't stop thinking of what just happened to us. Right now I'm still thinking about last night's events, I can't help but wonder what the deal with Hoopa is. Why was the poor thing so scared? I thought it was a lively, mischievous pokémon! Maybe we just startled it, I guess we will find out the next time we come across Hoopa.

But now we are almost at Laverre City, very close to the gate that separates Route 14 from the next stop in our journey. Although it's not as big as Lumiose, I'm sure there will be many interesting things to see as well! What's more, I think I'm going to ask Giles about the city, knowing more of it will be nice, especially now that we are almost there.

"Tell me, what's the most important place in Laverre City?"

"Hmm… I would say the gym, definitely! It's located on a very ancient tree and it almost looks like a dollhouse. It's a pretty nice building, I'm sure you guys will like it." As Giles speaks, we finally enter the gate that separates us from our next destination.

"Is there a stone shop as well? That would be so nice!" Steven is obviously hoping for a positive answer.

"Sadly no, there isn't! Remember, we can always go back to Lumiose City so you can visit that shop." Giles takes a furtive look at an informative panel, which doesn't seem to say anything too relevant.

"It's fine. But I know that I could have my other stones back if a certain someone didn't think otherwise." Steven looks in my direction with an unreadable expression, I'm not really sure of how to answer.

"I just thought that was the right thing, that's all! Hoopa was so scared; I really thought it would be wrong to…" I'm trying to justify myself, but Steven suddenly interrupts me.

"You don't need to apologize; I understand why you did it, that's in your nature!" He puts an arm around my shoulders. That makes me feel so much better!

"Yeah, I guess you can say that." I return the gesture putting my arm around his waist.

And now, we reach Laverre City! I'm having the exact same reactions I had during most of this adventure when discovering a new place. This city is truly amazing!

As Giles said, the first thing that gets my attention is the huge tree in the middle of the city. On the base of the ancient wood, a building with a blue roof sits. I'm pretty sure that's the gym, it really looks like a doll house! Although the rest of houses on this place have a very similar look, this alone already makes Laverre very different from Lumiose. Of course, there are many more differences like the obvious change of the atmosphere: while Lumiose is a bustling metropolis, Laverre City is a really calm place from what we can see right now.

We are going towards the Pokémon Center, where we will spend the night during the days we stay here on Laverre. It might not be as luxurious as Hotel Richissime, but at least it's a nice place to stay at! It's better than an old house with equally old and spoiled furniture, anyway. Now I wonder how living in Laverre is like…

All the people here appears to be really calm and as we enter the Pokémon Center, we can see more proof of that as the people here sits quietly in the arm chairs, reading a book or a magazine while their pokémon are being healed. Normally, people stands in front of the counter or walk around the room, but here that's entirely different! We approach the nurse, who is already disposed to attend us.

"Welcome to the Pokémon Center! May I help you?" She asks with a smile.

"Yes, we would like to book a room for at least three days, please." As always, Giles is the one taking the lead in this subject.

"Okay! Let me see…" Now the nurse is looking through something in her computer. "Would Room 14 suit you? It has two bunk beds and a medium sized closet."

"Yes, that's more than enough!" Giles looks back at us, seeking our approval. We nod slightly as he turns his attention back to the nurse.

"Do you need to heal your pokémon?" She has again a wide smile on her face.

"No." We say almost at the same time.

Now she hands the keys to the room over to Giles. "The room is here, in that aisle on the right." The nurse says pointing at an arch with a sign on top of it, where the word "Rooms" is written. We thank her and now we walk towards the entrance to the corridor.

I never thought of staying the night at a Pokémon Center, I always knew it was a possibility but I never considered it. I almost always spent the night either outdoors or in a hostel when I was traveling through Hoenn. I guess it was about time to try out the bed of a Pokémon Center!

The aisle, at least, looks pretty comfortable. The walls are painted in beige and the floors are covered in dark brown parquet. The doors are white with the numbers being written in a small sign next to them.

"Are we going somewhere later today?" Steven asks as he looks around, searching for our room.

"Yes! In fact, we are going as soon as we leave our paraphernalia in the room we will go there! Have you ever been to a Pokémon Fan club?" Both Steven and I shake our heads in response. "Well, I know I always say this, but I'm sure you guys will love that place!" All of sudden, Giles stops in front of a door, it has a number 14 next to it. "Yes, here it is!"

With a movement of his wrist, Giles opens the door revealing a room of a more than decent size. The bunk beds are placed each in one side of the room, with a white wooden built-in-closet placed between them. "Let's just leave everything but our bags here, in front of the closet." Giles points to the wooden wardrobe as he literally throws his trolley at the doors of the closet.

"I really hope you have no valuable items in there." Steven says with a perplexed look.

Giles stays silent for a moment, probably making a list on his mind of whatever he has inside that suitcase. Now he shakes his head. "Nah."

Now both Steven and I leave our suitcases next to the spot where Giles left his… But we don't throw them, of course! With a gesture, Giles indicates us to leave the room; it's time to visit the Pokémon Fan Club. There's one in Hoenn too, in Dewford Town to be precise, but I never thought about visiting it. I might drop by as soon as we go back, I'm sure it will be pretty different to the one here!

As we exit the aisle where the rooms are located, I can verify that the atmosphere at the Pokémon Center is exactly the same as it was a couple of minutes ago. Will the Fan Club be as quiet as this place? I don't think so! The people there will probably have lots of things to discuss and I'm sure that it will be full of pokémon as well. They don't call it the Pokémon Fan Club for nothing!

The street of Laverre City appears before our eyes again. There's way less people than in Lumiose City and they seem to be calmer too, they have no haste to go places, it looks like they just want to enjoy the moment as they walk around the place. This city is really inviting, it looks like something straight from a fairy tale and even some of the girls we see are dressed in a peculiar way. They wear furisodes of flashy colors and have dreamy expressions on their faces; they really merge with the ambient of the city.

"We are going to walk past the ancient tree, which houses the gym." Giles explains as we walk up a small set of stairs close to the Pokémon Center.

"Who is the gym leader on this city?" Steven asks.

"She is a much admired person, her name is Valerie." Giles changes his neutral expression to a face of pure admiration. "She is not only a gym leader, but also a model! Her otherworldly beauty leaves everyone smitten, trust me; she is even prettier in person than in pictures!"

"Valerie! I did hear about her, but I had no idea she was a gym leader too!" I learn something surprising every day; I guess that's what comes with being in another region.

"It's always great to see how trainers manage to combine their duties as trainers with different activities." Steven adds to the conversation.

"Yes! That's really something worthy of being admired." Giles concedes with a smile, I'm sure he is thinking about Valerie!

"By the way, did you ever get to see her in person?" I ask with curiosity.

"Who, Valerie? No, but I've been to her shows several times, she always walks through the catwalk with her pokémon, it's truly amazing! Oh, did I say that she specializes in Fairy types?" Giles talks really fast, it looks like talking about celebrities excites him!

"That's interesting; we have no Fairy type specialists in Hoenn." Steven says with a hand on his chin.

"Maybe with the years there will be one, the Fairy type wasn't all that common here in Kalos a few years back." Suddenly, Giles changes the subject. "Oh look, we are almost here!"

We are now getting closer to what I'm guessing it's the Pokémon Fan Club. The building doesn't stand out all that much from the rest of the structures in this city, it's only slightly bigger and it has a blade sign with a few pokéballs drawn on it. Also, the words "Pokémon Fan Club" can be read. I can't wait to see what kind of people hang out on these places!

Now we are leaving behind another set of stairs, only a few steps separate us now from the Fan Club. I think I can hear some music coming from behind the door, as well as some laughs. It looks like people know how to have fun here… I'm even more curious! It would be nice if my pokémon could get to do some new friends as well. And speaking of new friends, will the egg get their attention? I'm the one carrying it now and sometimes, it seems to move slightly. I really wonder what pokémon will hatch from this egg, we might find out soon! But first, we are going to find out what the inside of this Pokémon Fan Club looks like. Giles rings the doorbell once and now we wait patiently for someone to come and let us in. It doesn't take long until we hear some accelerated footsteps coming towards the door.

A middle-aged man wearing a black and yellow Pikachu shirt opens the door with a wide smile. "Oh, do we have new visitors? Come in, you're welcome to join our club, the more people the better!"

Obeying the man, we enter the building as we take a look at our surroundings. Everything is full of pokémon themed items, from plushies to posters and even pokémon shaped food. The music blasts through the speakers as various pokémon play around the room and their trainers talk to each other. One of the posters manages to get my attention since it depicts a very curious pokémon.

"Sir, what pokémon is this?" I ask to the man that opened the door as I gesture towards the poster. It shows a pokémon that looks a lot like Pikachu.

"Oh, that? That's a pokémon from a distant region! It's called Mimikyu and it disguises itself as Pikachu to make friends with people. Here at the Pokémon Fan Club we would surely be friends with one!" He finishes his sentence with a smile. "By the way, I think I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Corey, the president of the Kalos Pokémon Fan Club! Be free to release your pokémon so they can join the fun."

"Thanks!" We say almost in unison as we release our partners from their pokéballs.

My pokémon don't take a lot of space, same with Giles's, but when it comes to Steven's pokémon… That's a whole other story. As soon as they are released, everyone turns around to look at them. It doesn't take long until half of the people there gather around Steven's team to better admire them; I guess the other half might be intimidated by the sizes of those pokémon!

"How did you raise them?"

"Do you use any specific brand of food?"

"Are they as strong as they appear to be?"

"CAN I PET THEM?"

Steven seems to be kinda overwhelmed by the sudden attention his pokémon are getting, he is doing his best to answer everyone. Some even went ahead and are now patting Steven's Aggron on the head; the pokémon is more than happy with the attention! Giles and I watch the scene with an amused expression while our pokémon decide to check the place by themselves. Berry is getting looks from a group of women sitting around a table, mumbling things like "Such grace" or "The kind of pokémon you would see on a magazine".

I decide to start walking around the room too, taking a look at the different pokémon as I do. One of them is a white pokémon with a green tail, which is shaped like a spade. The pokémon is also carrying a beautiful red flower, which shows around with great pride to whoever approaches her. Suddenly, the trainer notices me and comes to where I am in the bat of an eye.

"ISN'T SHE ADORABLE?" The man says with a deranged expression. "CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MANY CONTESTS WE HAVE WON TOGETHER? COME ON, LOOK AT THESE CHEEKS!" He exclaims as he proceeds to pinch the little cheeks of his companion, who seems to be used to that gesture since she doesn't complain about that effusive display of affection.

"I see… How is your pokémon called?" I ask taking a look at the pokémon, who is returning the glance with an adorable look in her eyes.

"FLOETTE! I DIDN'T GIVE HER A NICKNAME BECAUSE THAT NAME FITS HER TOO WELL." This guy is clearly one of these trainers who could spend hours and hours talking about their pokémon! I would do it too, to be honest.

"That sure is a beautiful name! Now, if you can excuse me, I have to go somewhere else." I answer eyeing discreetly the other groups of people.

"No problem, take care!" The man suddenly mellows his enthusiastic tone, to my surprise.

As I walk away from that man and his Floette, I notice Hershey is hitting it off with a red and grey bird pokémon around the same size as him. I decide to take out my Pokédex to identify the other pokémon, out of pure curiosity.

" _Talonflame, the Scorching pokémon._ _In the fever of an exciting battle, it showers embers from the gaps between its feathers and takes to the air."_

They both seem to be having fun, Hershey won't stop flapping his wings and singing songs that I rarely ever heard, maybe only the times he was really happy. Like after an important battle, for example. The Talonflame, on the other hand, won't stop offering herself to be preened, which Hershey seems to hesitate to do for some reason. And I think I just found out that reason: a young girl, who appears to be the Talonflame's trainer, is looking at them with an amused expression. Besides her is another pokémon, a bipedal one that carries a domed, armor-like shell with a few spikes protruding from it. In a split second, the girl notices that I'm also looking at the couple.

"Are you the trainer of that Swellow?" She asks with a spunky tone, looking at me with her big green eyes.

"Yes, I am! I'm guessing you are the trainer of the Talonflame."

"Yah! Her name is Dakota. Does your Swellow have a nickname too?" The girl says getting up from her chair.

"Yes, I named him Hershey." I answer after taking a quick glance to the aforementioned, who now is not shying away from helping his new friend to clean her plumage.

"Like the chocolate?" She asks with her eyes wide open, I actually had no idea that there was a brand of chocolate with that name… "Just kidding. By the way, I think I might have forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Hailey!"

"Nice to meet you! My name is Emily."

"Nice to meet you too!" For some reason, she slightly bows her head. "Do you have any other pokémon here with you?"

"Of course!" I make her look at one corner of the room, where my pokémon have decided to gather. Giles's pokémon are with them too and of course, Ampharos and Trevor can't stop looking at each other furtively. Hailey listens closely as I tell her their names and their particular traits. She seems to enjoy hearing about that!

"Wait until I tell you what my Chesnaught does whenever she meets someone new! Actually, I won't say anything, just see by yourself." Now Hailey approaches her pokémon. "Look Chesnaught, there's somebody who wants to meet you!"

The pokémon looks at me with a curious look and emits a happy cry. Now she walks towards me slowly, probably hindered by the armor she carries, and turns her back on me.

"She wants to give you a piggyback ride." Hailey giggles. "But only around the Fan Club, okay Chesnaught?"

The pokémon answers her trainer in a happy tone as I struggle to get on the back of the grass type. With a bit of help from Chesnaught, I finally manage to ride her back. The sensation is amusing to say the least! As we start making our way out of the Pokémon Fan Club, I dedicate some entertained gazes to Giles and Steven, who look at me and my mount with a surprised expression. Now that we are in front of the door, Chesnaught opens it and then closes the door with a slight touch of her foot.

A few inquisitive glances are directed at us as Chesnaught starts walking around the building. She walks a bit fast, I'm guessing it's because she doesn't want to make Hailey wait too much in case she gets worried or something. But still, she seems to be having lots of fun and so do I! When you have rode on the back of swimming and flying pokémon, being given a piggyback ride like this shouldn't be anything extraordinary but to me it is. In all the time I've been training pokémon, I have never seen a pokémon like this one, so I'm guessing it's native to Kalos. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have seen it before. I think it's really interesting how it uses that shell on her back as an armor!

As we complete our lap around the Fan Club, Chesnaught rushes a bit to reach the door. She opens it in the bat of an eye and soon, we are back into the gathering house. Hailey waits for us with a smile on her face.

"That was really fun! I wouldn't mind doing it again some other day." I say as I get off from the pokémon's back.

"I know right? She loves taking me to places in her back and I don't mind that at all, my Chesnaught is a really fun pokémon to be around!" Hailey pats her pokémon's back as she speaks, which makes the Chesnaught smile.

"Emily, can you come here?" I hear Giles calling me. Does he want a turn at getting a piggyback ride too?

"I would love talking more to you, Hailey, but I have to go back with my colleagues!"

"That's okay! It's always fun getting to know somebody else and their pokémon even if it's just briefly. Anyway, I hope to see you again." She slightly bows her head again and I automatically do the same in response. I don't know why she feels the need to greet me like that, maybe it's because I'm older.

Going back to Giles, Steven is with him. They are sitting across the room and I walk towards them, dodging a little girl who is running around holding a plush depicting a black and pink bear pokémon. Now that I'm closer to them, Giles gets up from his seat.

"We are going to a nearby cafeteria now. I'm hungry and so is Steven!"

"But we have food here!" I don't get why he would want to go somewhere else when we have food right here.

"Yes, but they don't have this city's specialty: Laverre macaroons! They are just like regular macaroons, but lavender scented. Trust me, you guys will love them!" Giles says with that typical expression he makes whenever he talks to us about something about Kalos or its culture.

"He is right; he has talked about them in a way that has made me curious." Steven agrees with Giles.

"Okay, we are going. But nothing beats Mauville Ramen Bowls!" That last part I mutter it under my breath, as I get the pokéballs belonging to my pokémon out of my pocket. "Guys, we are leaving!" I say as I withdraw them back into the devices.

Giles and Steven already had done the same with their respective pokémon, so now we only have to leave and go to that cafeteria. We politely say goodbye to the president of the Fan Club before opening the door and heading outside. I already felt it before when Hailey's Chesnaught took me out for the ride, but the difference between the street and the inside of the Fan Club is huge! It's really noisy in there, but you don't really notice because you get used to it quickly. The streets of Laverre City are really calm in comparison to it.

We resume our walk through the beautiful city with that cafeteria in mind but suddenly, it looks like our visit will have to wait a bit. Both Steven and I stop in our tracks as Giles does the same. He is staring at a black haired woman not too far from us. It doesn't take too long for me to realize what's so extraordinary about that girl, she is…

"VALERIE!" Giles calls the name of the celebrity as he waves hello. Valerie slowly turns around, gracing us with a look of her unearthly eyes.

"Oh, did the wind bring to me a little group of admirers?" She says delicately as she slowly walks towards us. That outfit must be really heavy!

"Yes, it did! My name is Giles and I'm a great admirer of yours." Giles offers his hand for a handshake, to which Valerie responds with what seems to be a bit of hesitance.

"Sorry, but I got my manicure done recently and I must be careful. You know, just model issues!" Valerie laughs in a way that reminds me of some rich women on movies.

"I knew you were a model, but I learned from my friend here" I say referring to Giles "that you are a gym leader as well."

"Why yes, I am! Having new challengers is always exciting, although not many can stand the power of my Fairy types."

"That's interesting, I am a specialist on Steel types myself. Aren't they strong against Fairy types?" Steven's observation causes a bewildered look to appear on Valerie's face.

"Yes but… Fairy types have lots of aces up their sleeves! Besides that, those two types can coexist in harmony. Have you heard about the pokémon Klefki? It's both an Steel and a Fairy type."

"It's true! In my home region, Hoenn, we also have a pokémon with that typing." Steven answers while placing his hand on his chin.

"Mawile? I happen to own one! There's also another Steel and Fairy type pokémon said to have originated in a far away region, but it's really rare. It's even said to have something to do with the functioning of pokéballs! And speaking of those, if I may, I suggest visiting the Pokéball Factory on this city. It's actually a fascinating place!" Valerie covers her mouth with the sleeve of her furisode as she giggles again.

"That's an amazing suggestion; we will keep it in mind!" Giles beams enthusiastically.

Valerie blinks rapidly, fanning her long eyelashes. "I'm glad you liked my suggestion!" She bows her head a bit. "Now, if you can excuse me, I must go back to my gym. Au revoir!" Valerie waves goodbye just like a queen would do, moving her hand in an almost mechanical fashion.

We watch her go, observing the way she struts. It's almost like if the whole street was her catwalk! Although it's not too hard for me to snap out of it, I'm going to ask Giles about our plans for tomorrow.

"So, are we going to the Pokéball Factory tomorrow?"

"Huh?" Giles is still distracted by Valerie's elegant stride. "Ah, no. I had something else in mind. We will go to the opera theatre! We can go to the factory the day after tomorrow."

"Oh, an opera theatre? That does sound like a great plan!" Steven is excited by the idea, his eyes have lit up almost in the same way they do when he talks about rocks.

"I have never been to an opera theatre! It will be a fun experience." I'm eager to go there; I have only seen that kind of things through TV. Getting to see an opera concert live sounds exciting!

Now, with a plan decided for tomorrow, we finally resume our walk towards the cafeteria. Those macaroons better be as good as Giles implies that they are!


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: The killer's song**

Opera halls are wildly different from the Contest Halls in Hoenn. They look nothing alike! This particular concert hall we are in has a really pleasing decoration. I'm not saying Contest Halls look ugly because they don't, not at all! But this place has an air of luxury and elegance that can't be denied, I almost feel out of place being here, to be honest.

But I won't let that bother me; we came here to watch an opera concert. It will be performed by a young Kalosian singer, Madeline D'Robin. According to the sign on the entrance of the auditorium, she will perform several well know songs from some very famous opera plays. I have never been to a live opera concert, I have always seen them being talked about on TV. Getting to see one by myself will be an interesting experience, I'm sure!

We already bought our tickets and they are currently being checked by the attendant.

"They are in order. You may enter!" He says allowing us to get in as he gets ready to attend the next group of people.

As we look for our seats, which are located in one of the middle rows, I can't help but stare at everything around us. This place is magnificent or like Kalosians would say, magnifique! The red curtains are still down, keeping everyone from seeing the stage. The red armchairs filling the theatre look really comfortable and I can't wait to sit down on them! But the people sitting on the gallery will be the ones to get to see everything better; the boxes are placed in an angle that allows the audience to have the best view possible.

We sit down in our seats, almost in the middle of the row. I'm sitting in between of Giles and Steven. Luckily, from this row we have a pretty decent view of the stage and on top of that, it won't be long until the show starts. If you think that being inside a theatre just before a concert starts feels boring, you're wrong! The ambient is pretty much the same before a contest, the room is getting slowly filled by more and more people and said people won't stop murmuring about their expectations for the concert. Lots of them are greeting each other and I even overheard someone saying that they came all the way from Lumiose City only to be able to attend this concert.

And now, the lights fade slowly until only a couple of spotlights are left, illuminating the red curtains that cover the stage. A voice-over can be heard now.

" _Welcome to Laverre City's Grand Theatre, the show is about to start. Please, keep your mobile phones off so they don't disturb the performers. We remind our spectators that eating inside the enclosure is not allowed, although the boxes are exempt of the prohibition. That said, please enjoy of the show!"_

After the voice-over ends, the red velvet curtains finally start going up, slowly revealing a stage full of people. There's a whole orchestra here!

Of course, the musicians aren't alone here. Right as the curtain fully rises, the singer appears as well, coming from the left side of the stage. She waves and blows kisses at everyone as the audience goes crazy. We join in with loud claps; we don't want to seem apathetic!

"It's said that she is the new prodigy of modern opera, many musical experts of the region have their eyes set on her!" Giles explains at the same time he tries to clap with less intensity so what he says can be heard. I just nod and smile, feeling that I won't be able to make myself be heard among the noisy crowd, unlike him.

With a soft movement executed by the conductor, the orchestra starts playing a very familiar song. I can't really say how it's called, but it's one of those classical musical pieces that always end up appearing in almost all the media. It's exactly the kind of song that everyone has heard but nobody knows the name of! The young singer has already immersed herself into the music; from there I can tell she has her eyes closed and a faint smile on her face.

Her clear and dreamy voice fills the whole room as she starts singing the first verses of the song. Madeline's voice is making me get goosebumps; I never thought I would enjoy hearing opera this much! Now I understand why the connoisseurs of this matter are so enthused about this young woman. I can also say that I don't regret agreeing with Giles and Steven to come here to the theatre. One must try out this kind of things; you never know what you might end up becoming a fan of!

Madeline seems to feel that there's nobody else on the stage aside from herself, she is totally into the song she is singing and that's something beautiful to see, one so enthused and focused on what they are doing that nothing else matters at the moment. That can definitely apply to us trainers as well.

The sound of the instruments fades off as the first song ends. Madeline also stops singing, finishing the song with an awesome show of her vocal skills. Everybody on this room bursts into cheers and applauses and that, of course, includes me and my companions. The young singer basks in the attention she is receiving, again blowing kisses to the audience and bowing in different directions.

"Thank you!" She exclaims with a wide smile. Aside from her great skills as a singer, she also looks like a nice and approachable woman.

The musicians start doing their work again now that most of the people on the room has calmed down. Another fairly famous song is being played and just like with the first one, Madeline is totally into what she is doing right now, with her eyes closed lightly as she sings. Her high voice really reaches me; I wish I could sing that well! Sadly, some aren't born with that ability.

People seems to be very excited over hearing her voice, despite being a rather slow opera song, I can see some bobbing their heads to the rhythm of the music. Others seem to be entranced by it and then there are those who are already looking like they will fall asleep at any moment. I don't know if it's because the music has relaxed them or because they are bored out of their minds. I guess not everyone comes here willingly! As for me, I can't complain at all because I'm having a really good time.

I let my head rest on Steven's shoulder as I keep contemplating the show going on in front of me, on the stage. Soon Steven returns the gesture and puts his arm around my shoulders. Aah, now I enjoy being there even more!

Soon the song reaches its last notes, this one was a bit shorter than the first. As she finishes, Madeline closes her eyes again, receiving all of the admiration of the crowd. Both Steven and I leave our positions to join in to the general ovation. Giles is also applauding the young woman's performance.

A different song starts now, this time it's a sonata that was composed for a very recognized Kalosian baritone. Even though the piece doesn't feel like something she would sing, because of how different the style is, Madeline is actually doing a great job at it! Judging her expression and demeanor, she seems to feel very confident of herself and that's something really good, because it transmits to the audience and it makes us enjoy her interpretation even more than we already are.

 _ **About an hour and a half later**_

The concert seems to be reaching the end, the musicians already look tired and even Madeline herself looks exhausted, but somehow she still manages to pull off her voice in a way that makes it seem like she just started this concert, that effort is truly something admirable! The players are discreetly rushing, trying to make this song end as soon as possible. Madeline notices this and she also makes an extra effort, trying to make herself sing a bit faster to match the progressive increase in speed of the music.

People are enjoying this "trick" rather than being annoyed by it. Personally, I don't mind it at all; it can even be seen as a special way to conclude the concert. The people occupying the box seats are now standing, aware that the concert is coming to an end.

And that's exactly what is happening now. Madeline slowly comes to a stop, finishing her song. With a synchronized movement directed by the conductor of the orchestra, the piece they were playing ends. The musicians almost throw their instruments to the floor out of exhaustion, although they have to put them down anyway to join the night's star attraction in her greeting to the audience. They all hold hands and bow to the crowd as we all burst into a unanimous applause.

They repeat this a couple of times more as the audience goes absolutely bonkers, everybody seems to have enjoyed the show a lot and it's no wonder, Madeline and the orchestra did an amazing job! For a first time attending an opera concert, I had a really good time. I can't understand how some can fall asleep during the concerts or claim that it is boring! I wouldn't mind coming to this place again someday, who knows, maybe before we return to Hoenn we will be able to make a visit!

As the curtain goes down, everybody gets up from their seats to leave the theatre. That, of course, includes us as well. Both Giles and Steven have enjoyed the concert quite a bit as well.

"So, what do you guys think? Wasn't it amazing?" Giles inquires with a big smile as we make our way up the stairs.

"The concert was absolutely magnificent, I have been to a couple of recitals before myself, but none quite like this one!" Steven was marveled by the performance the whole time!

"I'm surprised by the experience; I never thought I would like an opera concert so much! When is the next concert happening?" I feel quite eager to know all of sudden! Although I'm aware that we probably won't be able to come, we will be busy with other things.

"Hmm… I'm not really sure. Maybe in two weeks, but I don't know if you guys will still be here for the next two weeks. For all we know, we could see Hoopa again tomorrow and this time you might be willing to let it return everything to where it belongs." Giles narrows his eyes as he looks at me and I can see Steven doing exactly the same.

"Come on, do I have to repeat it every time?" I try to defend myself. "I thought he was too scared to do such a thing properly, that's why I decided that let him go would be the best. We can always try to convince it the next time, don't you think?"

"Yeah, but the problem is that we can't know for sure when the next time will be." Giles finishes the sentence with a resigned sounding sigh as we finally make our way out of the theater.

Everybody is now dispersed around the hall, talking to each other just like they did before the show started. Many others are going downstairs with the intention of leaving the auditorium, or maybe having a pick-me-up in the cafeteria located in the ground floor. We are just going to go to the Pokémon Center to have dinner, it's already a bit late and there's not much else to do anyway. But we do know what we will do tomorrow, and that will be visiting the Pokéball Factory located in the outskirts of Laverre. After that, I'm not sure what will be the plan. Maybe Giles will think of something on the fly, or maybe we will leave for another city or town. Who knows?

Walking down the stairs is kinda annoying, there are lots of people wanting to go through the same place at the same time and that is making almost everyone a bit irritated. Some are muttering things in Kalosian while others just huff and puff with annoyance. As for us, we are just handling the situation trying to stay as cool as a cucumber. Luckily, the jam doesn't last too much as the people on the front make their ways to different places, allowing everyone to move a bit faster. We can finally step off of the last few steps and make our way to the door, but something stops us from doing so…

"YOU!" A female voice booms across the hall.

For some reason Giles turns around like if somebody called his name, as if whoever that woman is was addressing to him specifically. We turn around to see a woman with short, orange hair staring at Giles like if she wanted to make him explode telepathically or something. Giles doesn't know how to react to that woman's presence; he twists his mouth and slowly approaches her, looking back at us with an incredulous expression. We can't help but approach him, I feel curious about that girl's identity. Maybe she is just an angry ex girlfriend or something!

"I'm happy to see you too, Lucinda." Giles rolls his eyes.

"Oh boy!" That girl answers with a mocking laughter. "What has your pitiful self been doing lately?"

"I've been traveling, as usual." Giles answers with a straight face, pressing his lips together.

"I see you haven't changed not even a bit! You never wanted to expand your horizons and that condemned you to mediocre life. You know I'm right!" Now that Lucinda girl looks at Steven and me, twisting her nose and squinting her eyes shut like if we were a pile of garbage or something. She is starting to get on my nerves… "Now, who are those two?"

"They are friends of mine."

"So other two poor crétin that you have dragged into your spiral of mediocrity, huh? And what do you know them from?" She wants too much information, I think.

"I… I'm just helping them recover something." Giles is getting increasingly uncomfortable now.

"Oh." Lucinda suddenly looks very contempt, lifting her chin and giving us all a disgustingly smug look. "If you can get to it, that is. Now I have to leave, I have other important things to do right now." And with that, she leaves. She leaves without saying "goodbye" or anything like that, you know, like civilized people does! Seriously, what's that girl's problem?

The ambient suddenly feels weird, Giles's exchange with that woman looked like something straight out of a high school movie!

"So, who was that… woman?" Steven asks with perplexity.

"Let's just say that she is somebody I used to hang out with in the past. Yes… She belongs in the past." Giles seems incredibly agitated and upset as he talks about Lucinda. Maybe my theory is right after all.

"She is a very exceptional individual!" I comment as we finally head for the exit door.

"Yeah, she really is." Giles answers with a nervous chuckle.

That girl was really curious; I guess that coming across this kind of people from time to time doesn't hurt!


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Coming full circle**

We are finally about to reach the door to the Pokéball Factory! The paved pathway leading to it seemed to be as long as a battle between two Metapod. I thought we only had to walk a few meters until reaching the factory, but it actually took quite a good while! At least we all got entertained looking at the Pokéball statues and the small hedge mazes that appeared once we got closer to the factory itself.

When we enter the building, a big lobby greets us: the white walls are decorated with posters and paintings depicting the different kinds of Pokéballs, as well as a big diagram indicating the parts that make them up. A middle-aged man with a relaxed expression is sitting behind a desk as he looks through some papers, but now he notices us and gets up from his chair. The man, who I'm guessing is the receptionist, approaches us with a smile.

"How can I help you?"

"Is the factory open for tours today?" Giles asks politely.

"Definitely! Actually, I'm in charge of the factory tours. I will show you guys around the place!" The man makes a gesture with his hand, pointing to a door which has a sign next to it on which the word "Factory" can be read. The factory is definitely behind that door!

"Great! How much does the tour cost?" Giles gets his wallet ready, opening it with a swift movement.

"Oh no, don't worry about that! The tours are for free, we don't see the need to charge our visitors to see such a simple process." The guide explains as we head towards the factory's door.

"Although pokéballs are actually amazing devices despite of how common they are." Steven adds.

"That's right! It's incredible how these small spheres can store inside them a living being just like that." Our guide agrees as he finally opens the door to the factory, unleashing the buzzing sound of the machines involved in the manufacturing process.

As we enter, I find out that the factory itself is not as big as I imagined it to be. Now I understand why he said that it's a simple process! We can see a cart full to the brim with pokéballs that have just came out of the assembly line. The guide gestures us to follow him to the opposite side of the room, where said assembly line actually starts. A tired looking man is selecting a few materials before he puts them into the machine, which is relatively small compared to what I expected. Our guide starts explaining all about the course of action.

"This is the first step in the fabrication of a pokéball. As you can see, our worker has just put into this machine two of the key materials that make up a pokéball: the metal shell and the reflecting glass." The conductor points to the first machine, the one that is being used right now.

The man who takes care of the machine proceeds to put two metallic semi spheres on a conveyer belt. As we start walking again, the two metallic pieces go through a compartment from which a strong smell of paint can be felt and the sound of a spray can be heard clearly as well. Now the two semi spheres come out colored in their very characteristic colors. Next, a different worker flips the two halves so now the hollow part is facing up. We can see that the reflecting glass the monitor mentioned is now attached to the inside of the spheres.

"If the two first things were important already, the most important part comes now! Right now, this little machine here," the guide says pointing towards a mechanism hanging from a crane "will attach to the inside of the top part of the pokéball the energy source that keeps the pokémon inside the device but not only that! A set of several copper pins will also be inserted there; they are used to help expand the energy inside the device along with the special glass."

Just as the monitor finishes his exposition, the machine hanging from the ceiling starts doing its job, placing inside the red half of the pokéball the pieces mentioned by our guide. Now we walk towards another one of the machines composing this assembly line, this one is slightly bigger than the first two.

"This tool will attach the two halves and place the titanium locking bar that keeps the device from opening, thus releasing the pokémon inside on accident."

"By the way, can I make a question about that?" Giles asks almost raising his hand like if he was at school or something.

"Of course! But that will have to wait, after we get to see the whole process, there will be a turn for questions. Now, let's keep on moving!" The guide answers cheerily as we continue to walk through the room. The pokéball we have been following has already the locking bar on, now it enters a different machine, very similar to the previous one. "Now the release button will be placed, that's pretty much the last step. Next, a few workers will be checking the pokéballs as they pass through the conveyer belt. After that, the pokéball that meet all the requirements will fall into the cart at the end of the assembly line, from where they will be sent to all the Poké Marts of the region!"

As we were following the creation process of that particular pokéball, others were being made as well. Lots of them are now going across the last conveyer belt. Behind it, a few men and women observe with attention the spherical devices to make sure none of them has any serious defect.

"Perfect… Perfect… Perfect… Perfect… NOT PERFECT!" One of them booms as she grabs the faulty device and throws it into a trashcan situated behind her.

The rest of pokéballs fall into the container that we saw at first when we entered the room, however, now a worker takes away that one as fast as possible and quickly replaces it with an empty one. The sound of the impact that the pokéballs make when falling against the bottom of the cart resonates across the room, almost matching in intensity the sound of the machines themselves. Now the process seems to be even faster, I guess they were slowing down before with the purpose of showing us the fabrication process with every detail.

"When a tour ends, we like to gift our visitors with a little present from our factory." Our monitor says as he approaches the container placed at the end of the assembly lines, now coming back holding six pokéballs. "There's two pokéballs for each one of you! Make sure to put them to good use." The guide winks as he gives us the pairs to each one of us.

"So, I guess this is the turn for the questions." Steven says looking in Giles's direction, who at the same time glances at the monitor, waiting for his answer.

"Of course! Fire away." The man answers, willing to take our questions.

"I know pokémon can escape the pokéballs when they are being caught, but could that happen with an already caught pokémon?" Giles leans forward in anticipation.

"Hmm… That's an extremely rare occurrence but yes, it's possible. Luckily, Kalos fabricated pokéballs barely present that kind of problems!" The monitor presents his best smile, trying to further convince us about that. I just hope that never happens to me or anyone I know closely, it would be devastating!

"You have mentioned before that pokéballs are made of titanium, does that apply to the rest of pokéballs as well?" Steven asks placing a hand on his chin.

"Yes, except for Master Balls! They are made with a very rare kind of metal which name I'm not allowed to mention. In fact, that's the very reason Master Balls are so rare. Here in this factory we make more than just pokéballs, the other kinds are assembled on different floors on this building. The floor where we craft Master Balls is the very last one."

Now that he mentioned the Master Balls, I think this is a great occasion to ask this. "This question might be similar to the first one but, is it true that there's a small possibility that Master Balls fail to capture a pokémon?"

The man scratches his head. "Nobody likes to admit it but yes, it's possible. It's as rare as a captured pokémon breaking free from a pokéball, but it can happen." Now the guide takes a look at his watch. "Oh, it's time to finish this tour! I have a scheduled one with some school children in five minutes."

"That's alright! We have enjoyed this visit very much." Giles waves goodbye as he walks towards the exit door. Why is he suddenly acting like he is in a rush?

Both Steven and I thank the monitor as well and we quickly catch up to Giles, who is opening the door just now. What's his problem all of sudden?

"Giles, is it just me or you really want to fly away?" I ask with curiosity.

He seems to giggle. "You know, we really have to leave Laverre City now. I know it's weird and it's coming all of sudden, but I have a hunch that we should be somewhere else right now."

"What do you mean, Giles?" Steven asks with a very puzzled expression. Who knows what kind of thoughts are going across his mind!

"I will explain on the way there, now I'll go to the Pokémon Center and I'll get our things. You two can wait for me outside."

I guess we will have to trust him, then! I didn't see him this determined ever since he took us to that stone shop on Lumiose City. I just wonder what could be going on for him to be so excited all of sudden.

Giles has rushed inside the Pokémon Center promising that he will be back with all of our stuff in the bat of an eye. Meanwhile, I'm here with Steven right besides the door of the aforementioned building as we wait for him. I still can't stop wondering what could possibly he be thinking about now! Giles is definitely a box full of surprises.

"What an absolute madman!" I mutter to myself, but Steven catches those words.

"I can agree with you on that, but without him we wouldn't even know where to start looking for the things that were stolen."

"I wasn't saying it as something bad!" I pretend to be mad at what he said.

"I know that, I was just making an observation." Steven smiles as he puts his arm around me.

Ever since we are in Kalos, we haven't had too much time for the two of us. I guess that comes with having to share most of the time with someone who is literally a key for us to be able to get around the region, which I'm not saying is a bad thing. It's just that I wish I could spend more time alone with Steven.

Taking advantage of the situation, I lean in for a kiss but unfortunately, that small moment for the two of us ends right now. Giles steps out of the building carrying all of our suitcases with the help of his Ampharos.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything important!" Giles comments with a smirk as he gestures Ampharos to give us our respective trolleys. We just answer with a sheepish smile. "Alright, that means we can leave already. Thanks for your help, Ampharos!" With that, Giles withdraws his pokémon into her pokéball and we start walking towards a gate to a route leading outside of Laverre City.

I can't believe we are leaving already; I wanted to stay here a bit longer! I know Laverre City has lots of things to offer and I wished to see all of them but again, I must keep in mind that we aren't here as simple tourists; we are going after someone, as weird as that may sound. At least we got to see some interesting things here and we even talked to the gym leader! There are probably still many other cities and towns that we will have to visit, even if some of those visits will be brief. But if Giles wanted to go somewhere else all of sudden, it's very probable that there's an important reason behind that.

Now that we are just a few steps away from the gate, I suddenly hear a feminine voice calling my name. The three of us turn around to discover her identity. It's Hailey, the girl from the Pokémon Fan Club. She is carrying a red and white box with a dark blue bow on top of it. She is coming towards us with a mildly amused expression.

"How are you doing? Are they your friends?" She asks making a curt gesture with her head towards Giles and Steven.

"I'm doing pretty well and yes, they are! This is my boyfriend Steven and he is our friend Giles, he is showing us around the region since we aren't from here." I gesture towards them as I speak.

"Aah so you aren't from here? Then I suppose you are doing tourism or something!"

"Not exactly." Giles blurts all of sudden. "We are, uh… Looking for something."

"That sounds very cool! Did any of you guys catch any Kalos pokémon yet?" Hailey makes sure to look at the three of us as she sports an amused smile.

"Yes! I caught an Espurr that I sent to my parents so he keeps them company and not too long ago, I got a Sliggoo." Hailey nods as I talk and approaches me, putting the box she is carrying closer to me.

"Okay, here you go! I don't know if you will believe me, but your Hershey definitely has something to do with it!" She winks and giggles as I hold the box.

I'm a bit perplexed with her words; I don't even know if I should open the box now or wait until she leaves. I look up at Hailey to see if she is still here and indeed, she is waiting for me to open it. Without hesitation, I carefully lift the box's lid and what I find is…

…another one. ANOTHER EGG! And it's from Hershey? Wait…

"It's true what the day care workers say, sometimes you don't even know how these things happen!" Hailey giggles in amusement. "Please, take good care of it! Did you ever have any experience with eggs?"

"About that…" Steven speaks now. "… we are taking care of another egg already. What's more, we suspect it's more or less close to hatching." As if it agreed with his words the egg on the basket, which is being carried by Steven, moves slightly.

"Then that's awesome! I knew I did well giving you the egg, Emily. After all, I thought it would be nice for the pokémon that'll hatch to know its father. Now, if you can excuse me, I have to go buy some stuff. I hope we meet again, guys!" Hailey starts walking away as she waves goodbye.

We wave goodbye as well, telling her to take care. Now with yet another addition, it's time for us to keep on moving in our journey too, following Giles's sudden hunch. I can't wait to see where he wants to take us and what he wants to do there. Either way, I'm sure that there must be a big reason behind that!


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Rolling in the deep**

Going to an old, abandoned hotel in the middle of a long route doesn't sound like the best of ideas, but it was Giles's idea and we had to follow him. And as weird as it sounds, we ended up spending the night there! Now we are getting ready to go to Dendemille Town, a small village near here where Giles wants to take us in order to do something more "relaxing" than yesterday's events. Yes, the same events you will learn about right now!

Catching up to Giles was hard, to say the least. And trying to walk fast through that route wasn't a clever idea either; it's full of bumps and ledges, as well as quite a few hidden Rangers. We almost bumped into a couple of them and that earned us a few raised eyebrows. When we were finally close to the hotel, we came across a duo formed by some eerie-looking sisters that insisted in having a battle with us, but Giles told them that we were busy. And it's no wonder that such a strange pair was hanging out around that place, if it wasn't because Giles told us that we were in front of an _old_ hotel, neither Steven nor me would have guessed it.

From the outside, it looks more like the remaining of some ancient ruins than the façade of a luxurious hotel. Yes, believe it or not, this place (which now is known simply as Lost Hotel) was almost at the same level of Hotel Richissime. Apparently, the directors of both buildings were enemies and constantly tried to sabotage each other. In the end, Richissime's director somehow managed to ruin the electric circuits of this hotel, which soon forced the owner of the old resort to close it. According to Giles, now it's rumored to be shelter of scary pokémon and rather shady people.

"So… What are we exactly doing in this place?" Steven sighed as we walked down the extremely dusty stairs that would lead us to the hotel.

"We should find out soon enough… That's if my hunch wasn't wrong." And as Giles was done talking, we finally entered the hotel.

The lights were constantly blinking, giving the sensation that the lamps would burst at any moment. The paint in the walls was almost completely chipped away and the carpet on the floors wasn't any better. A few painting were hanging from the walls, but they were so covered in dust that making out what was being depicted on them was almost impossible. But that was not the only thing on the old hotel, oh no, there was so much more!

The more we walked into the hotel, the more people we saw. Just like the rumors said, that people didn't seem too friendly. All of them were either teenagers or already in their early twenties. Their garish hairdos were like a magnet for our eyes; we couldn't help but look at them although that clearly bothered them. Some even told us to look away from them in a less than polite way. And that was just in the first corridors of that run-down hotel! We saw and experienced lots of extraordinary things… But let's go one step at a time!

Not long after we started our walk through one of the corridors closer to the entrance, we got to overhear a very strange conversation.

"How do you expect me to get it if it always manages to get away?" The voice of a young woman hissed.

"If we don't, you know that our boss will get angry at us. And I don't want her weird lizard near me or my pokémon!" A young man answered with a less aggressive tone. He sounded more scared than anything.

"You are the one she'll be mad at! Our boss hates cowards and you are one."

"HOW DARE YOU! Now I'll tell her about the time you fell asleep during your guard!"

"Oh no, you won't!"

We walked away before things got weirder or the arguing pair came out of the room and caught us eavesdropping. I doubt that would have been a good outcome for us!

After that, we finally resumed our march. There were two sets of stairs at the end of the corridor, our plan was walking up either one of those, but _someone_ appeared right at the last moment, as we were about to start climbing the stairs on the left. But the way it happened… I doubt you will believe me, but what I'm about to tell is exactly how it all went.

A weird ring-shaped portal opened just in front of us, we barely had any time to react to what we saw. And we had no time either to dodge what came out of the portal. Well… Steven is the only one who suffered the consequences of not getting out of the way on time. The being that came out of the ring portal accidentally headbutted with Steven, who didn't take that well at all, especially after seeing who hit him.

It was Hoopa.

"THEY ARE OUT TO GET ME!" And it was terrified, just like when we saw it for the first time a few days ago.

"Who are they, more people that you have stolen things from?" Steven asked angrily as he rubbed his forehead.

"NO!"

"Steven, this is not the moment!" I glanced back at Hoopa, who seemed to be regretting showing up in front of us.

"When will be the moment, then?" Steven asked with a calmer tone.

"I think we should wait until Hoopa chills out a bit… And we should know about who it is referring to." Narrowing his eyes, Giles took a concerned look at Hoopa, who didn't know where to hide.

I got ready to speak, hoping that the little guy wouldn't freak out. "Could you tell us where did you come from?"

Hoopa hesitated a bit before answering, shrinking back and looking down. After a few seconds, it finally gathered enough courage to respond. "Upstairs…They were chasing me upstairs…"

The three of us exchanged glances. "Follow us." I said calmly, trying to make it see that we are trustworthy. Steven didn't look too happy, although he did go along with it.

"Why? What are you going to do?" Hoopa froze in place, probably assuming that we had bad intentions just like the people chasing it.

"We will help you stay safe!" And then, maybe because of an impulse, I reached out my hand to it. Of course, Hoopa doubted for quite a while before accepting the gesture but surprisingly, it allowed me to hold its hand. A tiny hand and also really soft to the touch, I must say!

"Where should we go now?" Steven asked rubbing his forehead yet again. That headbutt must have hurt a lot!

"We could hide in one of these rooms; the doors are so old that you don't need a key to enter." Giles suggested already putting his hand on the door's knob, but Steven rushed to stop him.

"And exactly because of that I think that's a terrible idea. Anyone could open that door and find us!"

"No worries, my friend here will help us. Let's go, Sigilyph!" And then Giles released from one of his pokéballs a black, spherical pokémon with three eyes. I still have stuck in my head the quiet but constant humming sound it made! "With his psychic powers, my Sigilyph will be able to keep the door shut. Now, let's go!"

And into the room we went. It looked like it used to be the janitor's room or something, some cleaning products were still laying there, as well as an old and very uncomfortable looking bed that made us choose to stand up rather than sit down on it. A single light bulb hanged from the ceiling and just like the rest of the lights in the hotel, it flickered from time to time, which made Hoopa even more uncomfortable. I was still holding its hand when we entered the room, but it abruptly decided to let go off me. If that would make it more comfortable, then I have no say on that!

"Can you tell us who are the ones chasing you?" Giles asked with the buzzing sound of his Sigilyph accompanying his words, which made them sound darker than they really were.

"Bad people… They only want to do bad things!" Hoopa barely dares to look at us. It MUST have had a bad experience with humans in the past that apparently still continues today and for that reason, it is difficult for it to trust them.

"Do you know what they want from you?" Steven is suddenly surprisingly calm as he addresses the pokémon that stole his most valued possessions.

"I'm not sure… I've been chased for a long time and I barely have time to be myself! I'm always running afraid of being caught by them. I thought that was over but… they can't… they can't leave it be!" The small pokémon began tearing up, that only confirmed my thoughts that it had been having a rough time lately.

The silence, which was only interrupted by Sigilyph's humming noises and Hoopa's quiet sobs, invaded the small room for a moment. I swear I saw Giles go pale after Hoopa was done talking. Steven looked very serious too, maybe feeling bad for being unfriendly to a pokémon that has it so rough. Well, maybe I thought too fast.

"Is this one of your pranks?" Steven asked resting his hand on his chin with an inquisitive look on his eyes.

"NO." Giles answered all of sudden. "I mean, he looks pretty scared like, genuinely scared. I don't know, maybe it's just me."

The first time we saw Hoopa I couldn't help but make myself lots of questions about it, but after that I was making even more. Poor unfortunate soul! As much as I wanted to, I couldn't agree with Steven in that regard. I know a terrified pokémon when I see it (or at least I believe I do) and Hoopa behaved exactly like one of them. I know it's a very intelligent and tricky pokémon, but I have a feeling that its attitude wasn't just a farce.

"So you say there are bad people after you?" I asked despite knowing the answer. Hoopa responded by nodding. "Isn't there any way you can make them go away with your portals, for example?"

"I have tried many times, but they always manage to find me again. I don't know what else I can do." Hoopa talked in such a low voice that even Sigilyph sounded louder than it.

"That's really unfortunate… That kind of people never knows when to give up, but I'm sure that someday they'll receive a lesson!" I tried to cheer Hoopa keeping in mind my own experience with Team Aqua, which now isn't bothering anyone as far as I'm concerned.

"Do you think so?" Hoopa's eyes widened and they seemed to light up for a moment. It was the first time ever since we encountered it that it showed some optimism and I liked to see that.

"Of course!" I answered with a smile to reinforce my message. Hoopa was about to say something when Giles spoke up.

"Nobody seems to be around; I think it's safe to go out." And so, Giles reached in his pocket for the pokéball belonging to his Sigilyph. "Sigilyph, you can rest now, thanks for your help!"

As soon as that buzzing sound ended, it felt like if my ears were opening like a surprise box! It was kinda strange. Now all we could think about was making sure we could keep Hoopa safe from that people it talked about.

Unfortunately, we immediately regretted stepping out of that room. Although it seemed that no one was around the area, one of the girls that we saw earlier walking around the entrance of the hotel appeared all of sudden. She looked at us like a Mightyena that just spotted its prey. What if she saw Hoopa with us?. Quickly, I told the guys (Hoopa included) to go back to the room where we came from. As soon as they left, I approached the young woman.

"Wanna fight?" I said in a low voice as I reached for a pokéball in my bag, trying to intimidate her.

"Girl, you have no idea who ya are messing with! Go Scrafty!" The girl threw a pokéball with violence as a reptilian pokémon with a very flashy red crest popped out of it.

I sent out my pokémon too, which turned out to be Lumi. I didn't have a battle ever since I fought Diantha and getting to see how Lumi held her own in battle would definitely be nice.

"Come on Scrafty, strike with a brick break!" The goon moved her purple hair away from her face as she gave the order to her pokémon without even waiting until I was ready.

"Retaliate with body slam, Lumi!" I encouraged her, eager to see the way she responded.

As soon as I gave the order, Lumi got ready to attack her opponent, but unfortunately the Scrafty was faster and hit her first. Lumi took the blow fairly well, sliding back a meter or so with her eyes closed shut. Other than that, she didn't seem to be all that affected. She is a resistant one!

"Let's try with muddy water now!" Lumi released a wave of brownish water from her mouth that impacted directly in the middle of Scrafty's face, leaving him dazed.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing? Now you'll see…" That girl's glare got even more intense. "Ice punch!"

We barely had any time to react before that Scrafty hit Lumi with his ice covered fist. Knowing that the attack was super effective, I was worried about how much damage it would do to Lumi. Just like I expected, that blow sent her to the floor, she was having difficulty to get up.

"Now you know what happens when you mess with our gang! After all, our boss-" My rival was interrupted by a sudden noise, like a broken glass. "Great, now I will have to go and check what the heck happened! But you stay here with your puny pokémon, okay? Scrafty is not done with his trouncing yet…" And with those words, that bully of a girl and her Scrafty walked away.

Of course, I wasn't going to leave my Lumi just like that. I knelt in front of her as I got a Hyperpotion from my bag, then I diligently sprayed it on Lumi. She winced as soon as she felt the medicine in her wounds. "I know this hurts a bit, but it's necessary! You will feel a lot better in a second." I explained as I patted her head, having emptied the spray. Then I couldn't help but giggle as she tilted her head in an adorable manner, as if she was processing what I just told her. Indeed, now she looked a lot better.

At the same time, I was wondering about what was so important that the person I was battling with had to interrupt the fight. If I remember correctly, this is the first time something like that happened to me! I guess that's just another interesting experience to add to my list. I also wondered if she would come back… I didn't think she would want to leave the battle like that, especially since she seemed so convinced that the victory would be hers. But in the end, it turned out that I would be the one leaving the battle.

"Emily, come here!" Giles was peeking out from behind a hole in one of the walls. How did he get there? Weren't they guarding Hoopa?

I told Lumi to follow me and we approached Giles. "What do you want?"

He was a bit nervous. "You see… Some of these goons managed to open the door and of course, we had to battle them. It was easy for us but when we were done, Hoopa wasn't there anymore!"

For some reason I had a bit of trouble processing that. I opened my mouth trying to say something, but all I could say was "Uh…"

"Are you okay?" Giles furrowed his brow. His words made me snap out of it.

"Yeah… What do you mean that Hoopa disappeared?"

"I mean what I mean. When we were done with those thugs, he wasn't there anymore!"

In two steps, I approached Giles even more. Now my brain was finally at its full capacity again. "Do you think someone could have taken it away?"

Giles's expression changed all of sudden, as if something just went across his mind. "Guess what? We shouldn't worry all that much! Remember that this pokémon can use its rings to come and go whenever it pleases."

"You're right! That's what probably happened." At least that's what I wanted to believe. "As soon as it saw itself threatened, it left using one of its portals." Giles nodded in agreement as I spoke.

"Now we should go with Steven. I can imagine he's not too happy about Hoopa leaving again without, you know, giving his stuff back!" After that Giles left, disappearing from the hole in the wall. I could see him stepping out of the room he was in.

I returned Lumi to her pokéball after thanking her for doing her best in battle. I wasn't sure if that girl and her Scrafty would come back or not. I doubted she would be happy to see that I ran away with my pokémon but then again, she left to (apparently) address an important issue… And that's exactly what I had to do then. Without a doubt, I assumed that there were even more shady people to deal with.

I followed Giles to the room we were in, the door was ajar and I could see Steven sitting down in that thinking pose of his. "What's the plan now?" He asked as soon as we entered the room.

"Well, now that our protégée has left, I think we could leave too." I sighed sitting next to him and putting my arm around his shoulders.

"Yeah, there are still several punkies upstairs but now that their target disappeared, I don't think we should worry too much about them!" Giles left himself fall in an old armchair in front of us.

Suddenly, my mind changed. "But what if they try to go after it? I think it should be better to make sure they forget about that idea." Most of all, I felt worried about Hoopa. It's a clever pokémon, but if it was so scared of that people it must be because of something. We didn't know what they truly were capable of either.

"Despite their attitude, that people doesn't seem to be too smart, I doubt they will manage to find it again." Steven declared calmly, very sure of his words.

"But according to what we heard earlier, they work for someone. What if that person IS smart enough to track Hoopa down?" I got up and checked that nobody was in the corridor. "How about we go upstairs to make sure everybody is gone?"

"You seem to worry a lot about that pokémon." Steven observed with his hand on his chin. "Is there any reason?"

He caught me at that moment. I do care about that pokémon, but I can't quite explain why. It must be in my nature, after all, I became a Ranger because I want to help pokémon in need! And plus, we need something from it. Hoopa must return all the things it stole and understand that doing that was wrong. In the long run, that's the true purpose of this journey!

"Well, you already know me. I like to help those pokémon who need it and that one obviously needs our help." I said nonchalantly before opening the door further. "Come on, let's go upstairs!"

They didn't seem too convinced about it, but Giles and Steven followed me. There were quite a few steps before reaching the first floor and some of them even creaked as we stepped on them, which made the walk a bit more difficult. Still, we finally reached the first floor, were we found exactly what we were looking for… That people was everywhere on that floor! As soon as we got there, they had their eyes on us, it was just a matter of time until one of them decided to come and get us.

"Look Rhys, I'm sure those are the ones who helped the thing escape!" A girl with a blue crest pointed towards us, her face made clear that she wasn't happy to see us there.

"You're right Tina, I don't care what they think of us, we will show them what we are made of!" Answering to that girl, a boy with his eyes lined in black started walking towards us with a menacing expression.

But he was not the only one; almost all of the people on the area were surrounding us at that point. I must confess that this was one of the situations in which I felt the most afraid. We didn't know what they could have done to us! Luckily, we had our pokémon with us and in fact, we were ready to send them out to battle their pokémon but… An unexpected savior came rolling towards us!

"Go away if ya don't want to get caught in the tornado, ya evildoers!" A voice accompanied by a sound of wheels rolling against the floor boomed across the whole aisle, we all started looking around in confusion.

"Who the heck is talking?" One of the gangsters shouted with a deep frown.

"Do ya really want to find out?" The voice resonated again and we still couldn't see the person it belonged to.

"What's going on?" A black haired girl walked around trying to see that mysterious person.

"Y'all will be caught up in the wind! That's what's going on!" The voice was heard again and this time, the rolling sound accompanying it was even louder, then he appeared.

A man dressed in an extravagant white suit that reminded me of Alvin Parsley, a white helmet and black sunglasses, suddenly appeared among the crowd surrounding us. He stopped right in front of Giles, who was standing on my left, and started doing various pirouettes and acrobatics. He moved as swiftly as a Huntail! In less than a minute, all the troublemakers seemed to feel extremely weirded out about what they were watching and eventually, they all left. That sure was a relief!

As soon as the last thug disappeared, the mysterious skater finished his performance. "And this was Twirling Whirlwind, always at justice's service! I really hope that those bandits leave y'all alone. It was a pleasure!" And as soon as he arrived, the man that called himself Twirling Whirlwind left.

"Well, that was onixpected!" Giles whistled as we watched the roller-skater go at the speed of light.

"I see what you did there." Steven struggled to contain his laughter. I just smiled and shrugged at his reaction.

But there was something that still bothered me. "By the way Giles, what was that hunch you kept talking about?"

"Oh, that!" He placed his hands in his pockets. "I thought that maybe we would find Hoopa there, since it's an isolated place and all. It turns out I was right, but we will have to wait even more to do what we came to do."

"Yeah…" I sighed. "Where are we going now?"

"How about we stay the night here?" Giles accompanied the question by snapping his fingers.

"Here? Are you serious?" Steven was surprised about Giles proposition. To be honest I wasn't too happy with the idea either, we already saw what kind of people can come to this place!

"Of course! This is not like that abandoned mansion; this place is a bit better. And plus, our pokémon will keep us safe from those nasty, _nasty_ Litwick!" His expression changed as he mentioned that pokémon. I wonder what his problem with it is.

And now, it's finally time to see what things wait for us in Dendemille Town!


End file.
